African charity sues British royal Prince Harry for defamation
A charity co-founded by Prince Harry in Africa to honor his late mother, Princess Diana, has sued him for defamation after he stepped down as a patron last year.
Sentebale, which supports young people living with HIV in Botswana and Lesotho, filed a lawsuit last month in London’s High Court, according to court records reviewed Friday.
Online filings show Harry and his friend, Mark Dyer, a trustee at the charity, are being sued for either libel or slander. No documents were available. Disagreements at the charity surfaced in 2023 over a new fundraising strategy. Harry and Prince Seeiso of Lesotho, co-founders of the charity, stepped down as patrons in March 2025.
At the time, they said the relationship between the board and its chair, Sophie Chandauka, was beyond repair. Chandauka later accused Harry of orchestrating a campaign of bullying and harassment to try to force her out.
The Charity Commission for England and Wales investigated and criticized both sides for allowing the issue to be played out in public and damaging the organization’s reputation, but found no evidence of widespread bullying or misogyny at Sentebale.
“Sentebale’s problems played out in the public eye, enabling a damaging dispute to harm the charity’s reputation, risk overshadowing its many achievements, and jeopardizing the charity’s ability to deliver for the very beneficiaries it was created to serve,” commission CEO David Holdsworth said in a statement in August 2025.
Harry’s spokesman had criticized the commission’s report while Chandauka welcomed it.
