Prince Harry is being sued for defamation by his own charity.
This is not something that often happens to members of the royal family.
Sentebale, the organization that Harry co-founded with Prince Seeiso of Lesotho in 2006 in memory of Princess Diana, confirmed on Friday that it had brought proceedings against the Duke of Sussex and his close friend Mark Dyer in the High Court in London.
The charity provides support for young people with HIV and AIDS in Lesotho and Botswana. The word “sentebale” means “forget me not” in Sesotho, the language of Lesotho, in southern Africa. Harry was inspired to become involved by his mother’s work on AIDS, her trips to Africa, and his own time there. After a rocky start, it had become a respected charity, and Harry was a key figure.
Court records viewed by Reuters showed that Sentebale was suing for libel at the High Court in London. The claim accuses Harry and Dyer of orchestrating a “coordinated adverse media campaign” that has caused “operational disruption and reputational harm.”
A spokesperson for Harry and Dyer said they “categorically reject these offensive and damaging claims,” adding that it was “extraordinary that charitable funds are now being used to pursue legal action against the very people who built and supported the organization for nearly two decades.” It later emerged that Sentebale is funding the action using private money.
Bad timing
The timing is bad. The lawsuit dropped just as Harry and Meghan were preparing to land in Australia for what has been billed as a series of “private, business, and philanthropic engagements” in Melbourne and Sydney. Critics have characterized the tour as paid speaking gigs and a monetized meet-and-greet.
The Sun on Sunday, meanwhile, reports that the trip is “a dummy run and testing ground for a potential joint tour of the U.K.,” with a source saying: “It could prove to be a blueprint for future tours together.”
The roots of the lawsuit stretch back to at least 2023, when, according to the latest book by the biographer Tom Bower (a recent guest on The Royalist’s new podcast), disagreements surfaced over a new fundraising strategy for Sentebale’s work in the United States.
The dispute pitted the charity’s chair, Dr Sophie Chandauka, against the trustees and, ultimately, against Harry himself. Chandauka later alleged that Harry’s team had asked her to defend Meghan against negative media coverage stemming from an awkward photo opportunity at a Sentebale fundraiser in April 2024.
“I said no, we’re not setting a precedent by which we become an extension of the Sussex PR machine,” she told The Financial Times in March 2025.
The situation had first deteriorated when Harry announced he was bringing a Netflix camera crew to the fundraiser, which Chandauka said interfered with the event’s logistics and finances.
By early 2025, the relationship had collapsed entirely. The trustees asked Chandauka to step down; she refused and sued the charity to prevent her removal. In March 2025, the trustees resigned en masse, followed by Harry and Prince Seeiso.
Chandauka then went on Sky News, denounced Harry as a racist and misogynist, and reported Harry and the trustees to the Charity Commission for England and Wales, alleging bullying, harassment, misogyny, and misogynoir. The Commission investigated and, in its August 2025 findings, handed Harry a pyrrhic victory when it said it had discovered no evidence of “widespread or systemic bullying, harassment, misogyny or misogynoir” as Chandauka had alleged.
Now, 13 months after his departure, the charity is suing its own founder. The defamation claim, which names both Harry and Dyer, alleges they are the “architects” of an adverse media campaign that “triggered an onslaught of cyber-bullying directed at the charity and its leadership.”
Matt Donnelly, the chief correspondent of Variety (another guest on The Royalist’s podcast), noted this week on X that he became the target of a similar online campaign after he charted the deterioration of the couple’s reputation in Hollywood.
The specific statements alleged to be defamatory have not yet been disclosed in public filings. But for a prince who has spent the past three years as a prolific litigant in the High Court—suing Mirror Group Newspapers, The Daily Mail’s publisher, and the Home Office—the irony of finding himself on the other side of the courtroom is inescapable.
For Harry’s alleged bullying to be thrust into the limelight on the eve of an Australian tour is highly inconvenient, given that Harry is booked to deliver a keynote speech on workplace mental health at the (checks notes), “InterEdge Psychosocial Safety Summit” in Melbourne on April 15-16.
Tickets were initially priced at AU$1,978 ($1,400), a price that seemed high to hear a lecture about burnout from a man who has never had a job.
It later emerged, via journalist Paula Froelich, that Harry was not the organizers’ first choice: he replaced Deepak Chopra, the original headliner, after Chopra’s name surfaced thousands of times in the U.S. Justice Department’s Jeffrey Epstein files. Froelich reported that Harry was “more of a Hail Mary” for the organizers, and that the speaking fee originally earmarked for Chopra was redirected to the Sussexes.
An expensive night out
Meghan, meanwhile, is the headline guest later this week at the Her Best Life retreat, a women’s wellness weekend at the InterContinental Sydney Coogee Beach running April 17-19. The top VIP package is listed at AU$3,199 ($2,260) and includes accommodation, a gala dinner, and a group table photograph with the Duchess. The event is limited to 300 guests.
The collaboration appears to have been put together through text by Markus Anderson, the Soho House consultant and longtime Meghan confidant. On the March 10 episode of the Her Best Life podcast, co-host Gemma O’Neill explained that Anderson had texted her while visiting Meghan’s home in late 2025 to ask whether she would want to collaborate if the Duchess visited Australia.
O’Neill then marveled aloud at how Meghan had gone “from Oprah to talking on stage with just a little odd me, Gemma in Sydney” — a line intended as self-deprecating praise but immediately seized upon by critics because it so neatly captured the perception of Sussex decline.
Questions have even swirled around whether the event actually sold out. The registration page initially stated that the ticket allocation had been “exhausted,” but the wording was later changed to advertise that additional rooms had “just been released.”
Froelich reported that two of her sources registered on the standby list and were granted tickets within hours. Reddit users posted screenshots of repeated emails from organizers encouraging them to buy tickets and bring friends. The event’s organizer, O’Neill, also carries her own baggage: her talent agency, Gemmie Agency, went into voluntary liquidation in November 2025, reportedly owing more than AU$500,000 ($353,000) to the Australian Taxation Office.
It emerged this week that Australian police will provide security operations for the visit at public expense, despite the Sussexes’ team having insisted the tour would be “privately funded.”
The New South Wales Police Force confirmed to The Sydney Morning Herald that it would “conduct an operation to ensure public safety is maintained during the visit by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex,” requiring “some additional security measures.” Victoria Police confirmed likewise for the Melbourne leg. Critically, there is no cost-recovery agreement between the police forces and the event organizers, meaning the security bill falls on Australian taxpayers.
The Sentebale lawsuit compounds the couple’s difficulties. For nearly two decades, the charity Harry founded as a 21-year-old in honor of his mother was a straightforward Good Thing. That it has now become another front in the sprawling legal and reputational war that follows the Sussexes wherever they go is a remarkable turn of events.
Want more royal gossip, scoops and scandal? Follow all Tom Sykes’ reporting at The Royalist on Substack or listen to The Royalist podcast on YouTube.
