Dr. Sophie Chandauka, the chair of Prince Harry’s Sentebale charity, claims the Duke of Sussex asked her to defend his wife, Meghan Markle, after an allegedly awkward photo-op.
Chandauka reflected on her alleged interaction with the Duchess of Sussex, 43, at the 2024 Royal Salute Polo Challenge in Florida in an interview with Sky News on Sunday, March 30.
“The duchess decided to attend, but she told us she wasn’t attending. And she brought a friend, a very famous friend,” Chandauka claimed, most likely referencing Serena Williams, who also attended the event at the time.
“We would have been really excited had we known ahead of time, but we didn’t. And so the choreography went badly on stage because we had too many people on stage,” she added. “The international press captured this, and there was a lot of talk about the duchess and the choreography on stage and whether she should have been there and her treatment of me.”
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In video footage which circulated online at the time, the two women had a seemingly uncomfortable exchange while posing for a photo with Harry, 40. Chandauka seemed to try and position herself between Meghan and Harry for the photo, but the couple didn’t move.
Instead, Meghan could be heard asking Chandauka to stand on her left side. Chandauka initially didn’t respond before ultimately fulfilling the request and standing next to Meghan.
“Prince Harry asked me to issue some sort of a statement in support of the duchess, and I said I wouldn’t,” Chandauka claimed. “Not because I didn’t care about the duchess, but because I knew what would happen if I did so, number one. And number two, because we cannot be an extension of the Sussexes.”
However, according to a source close to Sentebale’s trustees and patrons, the duke and his Sentebale associates fully anticipated Chandauka’s comments, which they characterized as a publicity stunt, and decided to quit the organization with this in mind. They remain firm in their resignation and look forward to the truth coming to light, according to the same insider.
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The interview follows Harry and Prince Seeiso of Lesotho’s shocking statement that they had resigned from Sentebale, which they founded together in 2006.
“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,” the princes said in a joint statement on Tuesday, March 25. “These trustees acted in the best interest of the charity in asking the chair to step down, while keeping the wellbeing of staff in mind. In turn, she sued the charity to remain in this voluntary position, further underscoring the broken relationship.”
In a statement issued to Us Weekly, Chandauka alleged that she had experienced “abuse of power, bullying, harassment, misogyny [and] misogynoir.”
“Discerning readers will ask themselves: why would the chair of the board report her own trustees to the Charity Commission? Why would the high court of England and Wales hear her case and issue an emergency injunction to prevent the same trustees from removing her as the chair of the board?” she claimed. “Well, because beneath all the victim narrative and fiction that has been syndicated to press is 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 coverup that ensued.”
Us reached out to representatives for Harry and Meghan for comment.
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