Sentebale is suing Prince Harry & Mark Dyer for defamation

Earlier today, I wrote about how the left-behind Windsors are losing their minds about the Duke and Duchess of Sussex’s trip to Australia, which starts next week. I mentioned this, and yes, I’m quoting myself: “I also think we’re probably going to get some big anti-Sussex story in this weekend’s Sunday papers. Maybe they’ll go back to that old chestnut, the fakakta bullying allegations.” Wellll, I was sort of right. I get half-credit. Instead of waiting for the Sunday papers, certain people organized something very special in an attempt to derail the Australia trip. Sentebale – meaning, Sentebale’s CEO Sophie Chandauka – is suing Prince Harry and Mark Dyer for defamation. The lawsuit was filed last month but it just became public today. Let the games begin.

A charity co-founded by Prince Harry in honour of his late mother Princess Diana, which he quit following a ​high-profile dispute, is suing the British royal for libel ‌at the High Court in London, a court record showed on Friday.

Harry, the younger son of King Charles, co-founded Sentebale in 2006 to ​help young people with HIV and AIDS in Lesotho ​and Botswana but resigned as a patron in ⁠March 2025 after a public falling-out with its chair of ​the board, Sophie Chandauka.

According to a record made public on Friday, ​Sentebale lodged a defamation claim last month at the High Court against Harry and one of his close friends Mark Dyer, who was also ​a trustee of the charity.

There were no details as ​to what the lawsuit involved. Neither Harry’s spokesperson nor the charity immediately responded ‌to ⁠a request for comment.

The charity’s co-founder Prince Seeiso of Lesotho and the board of trustees joined Harry in leaving Sentebale, which he helped set up nine years after Diana was ​killed in a ​Paris car crash ⁠and which means “forget-me-not” in the local language of Lesotho in southern Africa.

The 41-year-old prince called ​the breakdown in the relationship with Chandauka devastating, ​while ⁠she reported him and the trustees to Britain’s charity regulator for alleged bullying and harassment.

After a review, the Charity Commission reported it had ⁠found ​no evidence of bullying, but said ​there had been weak governance and criticised all parties for allowing an internal ​dispute to become public.

[From Reuters]

What’s funny is that, for the past year, I’ve wanted Harry to pursue legal action against Chandauka. What she’s said about Harry and Meghan specifically was asinine and slanderous, especially the on-the-record quotes she gave to the Financial Times and her on-camera interview with Sky News last year. Her story has changed several times, and she seems grotesquely obsessed with Harry and Meghan. Incidentally, I have no evidence of this, but I’ve believed for some time that Chandauka is being used by people connected to Prince William, including Iain Rawlinson. The timing of this lawsuit backs that up, don’t you think? Anyway, I’m actually glad that this situation is going to court in some form, because I absolutely believe that Harry has plenty of evidence against her.

Photos courtesy of Cover Images. Screencaps courtesy of Sky News.