Prince Harry sued for libel by his former charity Sentebale

LONDON — A charity cofounded by Prince Harry in honor of his late mother, Princess Diana, which he quit following a high-profile dispute, is suing the British royal for libel at London's High Court.

The charity, Sentebale, lodged a defamation claim in March at the High Court against Harry and Mark Dyer, a trustee and one of Harry's close friends, according to court record obtained by Reuters on Friday, April 10.

Harry cofounded Sentebale in 2006 in honor of his mother, nine years after she was killed in a Paris car crash, to help young people with HIV and AIDS in Lesotho and Botswana. He quit the charity, for which he served as a patron, in March 2025 following a conflict between trustees and the chair of the board, Sophie Chandauka.

There were no details as to what the lawsuit involved, Reuters reports.

In a statement, a spokesperson for the Duke of Sussex and Dyer called the lawsuit's claims "offensive and damaging."

"As Sentebale's co-founder and a founding trustee, they categorically reject these offensive and damaging claims," the statement read. "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."

Cofounder Prince Seeiso of Lesotho, as well as the board of trustees, joined Harry in leaving Sentebale following a leadership dispute with chair Sophie Chandauka, a Zimbabwe-born lawyer who has refused to step down and sued the charity in order to retain her position, The Times reported last March. Britain's Charity Commission confirmed to the outlet that an investigation was underway.

"Nearly 20 years ago, we founded Sentebale in honor of our mothers. Sentebale means 'forget-me-not' in Sesotho ... and it's what we've always promised for the young people we've served through this charity," Harry and Seeiso said in a joint statement obtained by United Kingdom news outlets Sky News and The Times.

The princes resigned "in support of and solidarity" with the board of trustees, who had acted in the best interests of the charity in asking the chair to step down, the joint statement said.

In a statement shared with Reuters, Chandauka said she would continue to perform her role. She went on to criticize "people in this world who behave as though they are above the law and mistreat people and then play the victim card and use the very press they disdain to harm people who have the courage to challenge their conduct."

She added that underlying the "victim narrative and fiction," which she said had been fed to the media, was "the story of a woman who dared to blow the whistle about issues of poor governance, weak executive management, abuse of power, bullying, harassment, misogyny, misogynoir – and the cover-up that ensued."

Chandauka later reported Harry 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 criticized all parties for allowing an internal dispute to become public.

Contributing: Michael Holden and Sarah Young, Reuters; Taijuan Moorman, USA TODAY