The charity Prince Harry co-founded to honor his late mother Princess Diana has sued the former working royal for libel.
Sentebale filed a complaint against Prince Harry last month with the High Court of London. The complaint also named Mark Dyer, who was a trustee of the charity. The charity is seeking the court’s intervention, protection and restitution after Prince Harry and Dyer launched a “coordinated adverse media campaign,” Fox News Digital can confirm.
“The proceedings have been brought against Prince Harry and Mark Dyer, identified through evidence as the architects of that adverse media campaign, which has had significant viral impact and triggered an onslaught of cyber-bullying directed at the charity and its leadership,” a statement shared by Sentebale read.
“Sentebale has experienced the adverse media campaign as false narratives circulated through the media about the charity and its leadership, attempts to undermine its relationships with staff, existing and prospective partners, and the forced diversion of leadership time and resources into managing a reputational crisis not of the charity’s making,” the statement continued.
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A spokesperson for The Duke of Sussex and Mark Dyer denied the claims.
“As Sentebale’s co-founder and a founding trustee, they categorically reject these offensive and damaging claims,” the spokesperson told Fox News Digital. “It is extraordinary that charitable funds are now being used to pursue legal action against the very people who built and supported the organisation for nearly two decades, rather than being directed to the communities the charity was created to serve.”
Prince Harry left Sentebale on March 25, 2025, following a dispute between the charity’s board of trustees and its chairwoman, Dr. Sophie Chandauka.
Disagreements at the charity first surfaced in 2023 over a new fundraising strategy. The Duke of Sussex, along with his co-founder, Prince Seeiso of Lesotho, stepped down in solidarity with fellow trustees roughly two years later.
At the time, they said the relationship between the board and Chandauka was beyond repair.
“Nearly 20 years ago, we founded Sentebale in honour of our mothers. Sentebale means ‘forget-me-not’ in Sesotho, the local language of Lesotho, and it’s what we’ve always promised for the young people we’ve served through this charity,” Prince Harry and Prince Seeiso, who co-founded the charity in April 2006, said in a joint statement obtained by Fox News Digital.
“Today is no different. With heavy hearts, we have resigned from our roles as patrons of the organization until further notice, in support of and solidarity with the board of trustees who have had to do the same,” the statement added. “It is devastating that the relationship between the charity’s trustees and the chair of the board broke down beyond repair, creating an untenable situation.”
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The Duke of Sussex co-founded the charity with Seeiso, whose mother died in 2003, after visiting Lesotho during his gap year in 2004. Sentebale was created to help people in Lesotho and Botswana living in poverty and those suffering from HIV and AIDS.
According to The Times, the charity had carried out a “restructuring” of its board as “confirmation of its strategy to redeploy senior roles to be proximate to most of the team and programs in Southern Africa.”
Chandauka later accused Harry of orchestrating a campaign of bullying and harassment to try to force her out.
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The bullying and harassment claims were investigated by the Charity Commission for England and Wales, who found no evidence of widespread bullying at the charity.
The commission criticized both the board of trustees and the chairwoman for allowing the ordeal to play out publicly, damaging the charity’s reputation.
“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.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.
