Prince Harry sued for defamation by charity he co-founded | Prince Harry

The Duke of Sussex is being sued by Sentebale, the latest in a series of painful developments regarding the African aid organization he co-founded.

The charity has filed documents with London’s high court over defamation claims naming Prince Harry and former Sentebale trustee Mark Dyer as defendants.

The prince became the charity’s chairman after resigning as patron last year. He had been involved in a public verbal altercation with Sophie Chandauka.

Sentebale works with children and young people in South Africa. Harry and Lesotho co-founder Prince Seeiso resigned in March 2025, and the trustees later resigned in 2023 over a dispute with appointed lawyer Chandauka.

Sentebale said it had taken legal action following “a coordinated negative media campaign that has run since 25 March 2025, resulting in damaging reputation and operational disruption to the charity, its leaders and strategic partners.”

It added: “Citizens have been brought against Prince Harry and Mark Dyer, who are identified by the evidence as the architects of a negative media campaign that had a significant viral impact and triggered a cyberbullying attack against the charity and its leaders.

“Sentebale experienced the negative media campaign as false narratives circulating in the media about the charity and its leadership, attempts to undermine its relationships with staff, current and potential partners, and the forced diversion of leadership time and resources into managing a reputational crisis that did not originate from the charity.

“The charity must not continue to use its resources to manage and address the damage this negative media campaign has caused to its operations and partnerships. This must be stopped. The board and chief executive have initiated this legal action to ensure this protection. The costs of doing this are being met entirely by external funding and no charity funds have been used.”

The claim was lodged on March 24, according to HM Courts and Tribunals Service, but no further details were available.

A spokesman for the Duke of Sussex and Mark Dyer said: “As co-founder and founding trustees of Sentebale, we categorically deny these offensive and damaging allegations.

“It is extraordinary that charity funds are being used to take legal action against those who founded and supported the organization for almost two decades, rather than being directed to the communities the charity was founded to serve.”

In August 2025, the Charity Commission criticized Harry for absolving him of racism while allowing the fight with the chair to “play out in public”.

After his resignation was made public, Chandauka said he was targeted by people “playing the victim card”. She described the dispute as “the story of a woman who dared to blow the whistle on mismanagement, poor administrative management, abuse of power, bullying, harassment, misogyny, misogyny.” [discrimination against black women] – and the ensuing cover-up”.

In its compliance case decision, the regulator criticized everyone involved in the dispute for “allowing this to play out in public”. He said the failure of the then trustees to resolve disputes internally “seriously affected the charity’s reputation and risked damaging the public’s confidence in charities generally”.

The commission found that a serious falling out occurred between Chandauka and Harry following the formulation of a new fundraising strategy in the US.

In response at the time, a spokesman for Harry, who is not a trustee and founded the charity in memory of his mother Diana, Princess of Wales, criticized the commission, saying its report was “disturbingly inadequate”.

They said: “It is not surprising that the commission did not find any wrongdoing in relation to Sentebale’s co-founder and former boss, Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex.

“They also found no evidence of widespread bullying, harassment or misogyny and misogyny at the charity, as the current chairman falsely claims.

“Despite all this, their report falls disturbingly inadequate in many respects, not least the fact that the consequences of the current president’s actions will be borne not by him but by the children who rely on Sentebale’s support.

“Sentebale has been a deeply personal and transformative mission for Prince Harry, founded to serve some of the most vulnerable children in Lesotho and Botswana.”