bitchy | Bower: Sophie Chandauka told Prince Harry that his image was hurting Sentebale

Last Friday, the Times of London began serializing Tom Bower’s latest deranged book about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Harry and Meghan’s spokesperson swiftly issued a statement, and Invictus’s spokesperson did as well, since Bower devoted a lot of time to blatantly lying about Invictus and the Vancouver-Whistler games last year. Given the fact that Bower’s unhinged lies are being platformed across the tabloid and “legitimate” media yet again, I feel like the Sussexes have really had enough. They might not stop with statements – I believe that Bower’s defamatory lies have now risen to the level where Harry and Meghan have grounds to sue. I know that the Bower’s deranged supporters are using that as a gotcha – “why doesn’t Harry sue then??” – but we don’t know what conversations the Sussexes are having with their lawyers. Speaking of, it looks like one of Bower’s sources was none other than Sophie Chandauka, the woman who stole Sentebale, the charity founded by Prince Harry and Prince Seeiso. Bower’s book contains a huge amount of “Chandauka’s version of events,” which Bower presents as facts without any due diligence. God, I hope Harry sues the f–k out of Chandauka too. From the Times’ excerpt:

On their flight to Singapore, [Sophie Chandauka] introduced another unpleasant reality check [to Prince Harry]. Corporate brands hate controversy. After conducting a brand audit among 50 organisations and donors, she told Harry she had discovered that his personal brand value had crashed. “People don’t want to be associated with your Netflix shows and especially not with Meghan,” she reported. The survey also discovered that Meghan had little brand value in America. Across the globe, she actually damaged Harry’s remaining brand value.

Accustomed to being hailed as “box office”, Harry was stunned. Johnny Depp, he replied, had still attracted a lot of money despite his bitter courtroom battles with Amber Heard. Couldn’t he do the same? Times have changed, Chandauka replied. The proof was in the finances. Following critical comments about Harry and Meghan on the polo clubs’ websites and suspicions about Harry’s acceptance of a $1 million fee for addressing an investment conference in Florida, American polo sponsors had cancelled their donations and Audi had withdrawn its annual $1 million sponsorship. “They don’t want to be associated with a Page Six story,” Chandauka told Harry, referring to the New York Post’s gossip column.

Eyewitnesses at the polo match in Singapore noticed Harry’s coolness towards the new chairwoman. Before Harry left Singapore, Miyazaki revealed that Handa was considering ending his sponsorship of Sentebale.

Sentebale, Harry told Chandauka, was relying too much on his money and his polo matches. He would only commit to future polo matches if the profit was doubled to at least £700,000. Chandauka realised that Harry hadn’t listened. He did not want to register that Spare and the Netflix series had damaged his brand value.

… At the same meeting, the trustees considered Harry’s brand value. “The more you ascend, the less oxygen you have to tell the truth,” Jonathan Mildenhall, a marketing expert introduced by Chandauka, told Harry. “Spare should have been called Duty,’ Mildenhall continued. “Your image is bad,” the prince was told. Raising money in America would be difficult because “you’re not special”. “How come no one told me?” asked Harry, puzzled by the term “brand audit”.

The solution, Harry agreed, was to abandon the “poor rich prince” narrative and go back to basics. “Americans love a comeback story,” said Chandauka. “We need American corporates who want to be associated with your mission, not you personally. They don’t want your victimhood. We’ve got to pitch it right for the young philanthropists. It can’t be Africans with a begging bowl.’”

[From The Times]

It goes on and on like that, with Chandauka claiming that Harry doesn’t know how charitable donations work, and repeatedly arguing with Harry over his brand and image. To which I say…okay, now that Sentebale is divorced from Harry, then surely Chandauka has implemented all of her brilliant fundraising plans and steadied Sentebale’s finances completely, right? Oh, wait, you’re telling me that no one wants to be associated with a lying grifter like Chandauka and that she’s looted Sentebale’s cash reserves and shuttered almost all of Sentebale’s community work, including the children’s center? You’re telling me that Chandauka, working alongside Prince William’s henchmen, destroyed a charity from within, all so they could argue that “no one wants to be associated with Harry and Meghan!” Chandauka is utterly unhinged. No wonder she found a sympathetic ear with Bower.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images, screencap courtesy of Sky News.