Prince Harry‘s former charity, Sentebale, has been making major headlines after he chose to resign from the organization – a big deal, considering its ties to his late mother Princess Diana. Chairwoman Dr. Sophie Chandauka refused to step down when the trustees of the charity asked her to after she allegedly caused major financial issues for Sentebale. She’s now speaking out, and Meghan Markle appears to be her next target.
During an appearance on the Sky News show Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips, Sophie claimed the charity’s troubles began while planning the 2024 Royal Salute Polo Challenge. At first, things were going well, but Harry wanting to film the event for Netflix threw organizers for a major loop.
“We had a very generous family that was happy for us to use their polo grounds at a material discount,” Sophie said on the show, via Page Six. “And then about a month before the event was about to take place, Prince Harry called the team and said, ‘I’m doing a Netflix show and I would love to bring a camera crew so that I can shoot some footage in this show.’”
This took the event into “commercial venture” territory, which meant the venue was now going to charge more for Sentebale to use it. Because the charity could no longer afford it, a new venue was needed, which it was able to procure, but the hiccups didn’t stop there.
It wasn’t surprising at all to see that Meghan had attended the polo match to cheer Harry on, but according to Sophie, no one running the event knew that she was coming ahead of time – or that she was bringing BFF Serena Williams – which caused a bit of a disruption they had no time to prepare for.
“The duchess decided to attend, but she told us she wasn’t attending, and she brought a friend, a very famous friend,” she said, per Page Six. “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.”
After Meghan was caught on camera asking Sophie to move so she wouldn’t be posing beside Harry in a photo, it caused a bit of a media frenzy. And according to her, Prince Harry believed that she was to blame and asked her to issue an apology to Meghan.
“I said I wouldn’t. Not because I didn’t care about the duchess, but because I knew what would happen if I did so, number one,” Sophie said. “And number two, because we cannot be an extension of the Sussexes.”
After the interview aired, a source close to Meghan and Harry told the Daily Mail that Sophie’s claims are “completely baseless.”
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