EXCLUSIVE: Prince Harry's Downward Spiral Revealed — How Royal Exile is Feeling 'Grief Stricken' and 'Like He's Had One of His Fingers Cut Off' Amid Charity 'Bullying' Chaos
Prince Harry is 'grief stricken' after his Lesotho-based HIV and Aids charity faced accusations of bullying, harassment and misogyny.
April 1 2025, Published 7:30 p.m. ET
Prince Harry has been left "grief-stricken" after his charity faced accusations of bullying, harassment and misogyny.
RadarOnline.com can reveal the royal has also told how he feels “like he's had one of his fingers cut off" after he resigned from his Lesotho-based HIV and Aids charity Sentebale last week in controversial circumstances.
Prince Harry feels 'like he's had one of his fingers cut off,' according to his close friend Alex Rayner.
His old school friend Alex Rayner, who went to the North Pole with him in 2012, has spoken up on behalf of his pal by accusing ex-Sentebale chairman Dr. Sophie Chandauka of tarnishing his reputation to cover up her own shortcomings within the charity.
He said: "Harry is very happy for me to speak for him about how he feels about this awful situation.
"He is just beyond heartbroken and flabbergasted that the charity he founded as a teenager has been taken hostage by the chair. It feels tantamount to a hostile takeover.
Harry quit the charity last week 19 years after co-founding Sentebale in memory of his late mother, Princess Diana.
"He is so upset and hurt and wounded about the things that are being said about him. I think it's too early to tell whether he will just walk away now or whether he might try and get it back.
"The way he feels is as if he has had one of his fingers cut off.
"He set up Sentebale with a schoolfriend when the death of his mum was a fresh memory. At the moment he is just in total shock about what is being said and the accusations being made."
Rayner added that he believes some of the accusations from Sentebale chairwoman Dr. Chandauka may possibly spring from jealousy of Harry's wife, Meghan Markle.
At the heart of the row is a major falling out between the prince, other trustees, and Dr. Chandauka, a Zimbabwean lawyer and businesswoman with a gilded career in London and New York.
Dr. Chandauka took over in July 2023 and set about diversifying the charity's income streams.
When donations were weaker than expected, the trustees apparently asked her to step down, yet she claims it was the "toxicity" of the Sussex brand that dented income.
Dr. Chandauka said she was being forced out for daring to blow the whistle on ‘weak governance, weak executive management, abuse of power, bullying, harassment, misogyny, misogynoir (hatred of black women) – and the cover-up that ensued."
Harry's decision to bring wife Meghan to a charity polo match, and the Netflix cameras, caused his charity to lose venue, according to the ex-chair.
With Dr. Chandauka refusing to go, Harry, the charity's co-founder Prince Seeiso of Lesotho, and all five of the trustees resigned en masse last week, citing irreparably broken relations with the chairwoman.
Without naming him, Dr. Chandauka then aimed an even more pointed barb at him, saying: "There are 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."
Harry's pal accused Dr Sophie Chandauka of tarnishing Harry to cover her own shortcomings within the charity.
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She also said that she would not allow Sentebale to be an extension of the Sussex brand, after Harry invited his wife to a polo event held in aid of the charity, which he wanted to include on the pair's Netflix documentary.
Dr. Chandauka claims the charity lost the venue following the involvement of both Netflix and Meghan, which Rayner refutes.
He said: "The chair should never have let that narrative take hold, that Meghan had caused an issue.
"If that narrative did take hold, then I would argue it is down to the chair to put it right.
"They could have issued a statement and put a stop to it, but they did not. Why? Again, the whole thing smells. It feels planned, and I suspect that the whole thing could only have come from the chair herself.
"Any chair should have been delighted to have Meghan there. When you have both the Sussexes there, it doubles the reaction, the power of it. And yet here she (Dr. Chandauka) is refusing to get hold of a negative narrative which damages Meghan. It makes you wonder where it came from?’
As for the suggestion that Meghan effectively gatecrashed the event – Dr Chandauka said she had not been expected to attend, but then turned up with Serena Williams – Rayner said: "It's Harry’s charity polo match, and Meghan is his wife, of course she should have expected her there."
