Prince Harry should fear his alleged “angry” message to Sentebale charity head Dr. Sophie Chandauka leaking to the public, as it may make him look like a hypocrite, multiple sources told Page Six.
“Harry should be nervous about this message coming out, especially when he has been so outspoken about his wife being bullied in the past,” said a charity insider.
The Duke of Sussex, 40, reportedly sent a heated message to Chandauka after she allegedly refused to defend Meghan Markle following an embarrassing moment at a charity polo match in April 2024.
Markle, 43, made headlines when she appeared to stop Chandauka from standing next to Harry as he collected his trophy at the Miami event.
The negative attention allegedly led to Harry asking the chair of the African charity to issue a public message of support for his wife.
One charity insider told us Chanukaka, who this weekend publicly accused Harry of “harassment and bullying at scale,” was stunned to get the “angry” message from Harry. A source also told the Daily Telegraph the note was “unpleasant and imperious.”
A Sentebale rep confirmed they had the message, telling Page Six: “This is true. There is a document.”
Markle has claimed she was subjected to shocking treatment while living behind palace walls, before she and Harry “quit” the royal family in 2020. But she has also been accused of bullying staff while still a working member of the royal family, which sources close to her have denied.
“When Megan was accused of being a bully, Harry’s world stopped,” the insider recalled. “He moved heaven and Earth to try to protect her. He alienated his family to protect her — and now he’s being accused of the same thing.”
The insider pointed out that Markle — who is busy launching her As Ever lifestyle range, due to drop this week — has yet to speak out in support of her husband.
Markle had not been expected at the match, but turned up at the 11th hour with tennis champ Serena Williams. A source told Page Six that the duchess asked event staff to find her some champagne.
She was not scheduled to be on stage when Harry accepted his trophy, one onlooker told us, but “she decided to get up at the last minute.”
“The choreography went badly on stage because we had too many people on stage,” Chandauka told Sky News’ “Sunday Morning with Trevor Phillips.”
Chanukaka was asked twice by Markle to move to her left side, away from Harry who insisted on keeping his arm around his wife. Others therefore had to shuffle around them, with Chandauka forced to awkwardly duck under the trophy.
“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,” Chandauka told Phillips.
She claimed the media attention around it prompted Harry to ask her to issue a statement of support for the duchess.”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. And number two, because we cannot be an extension of the Sussexes,” Chandauka said.
The charity head and Harry had previously been so friendly that she even accompanied him and his BFF, Argentinian polo player Nacho Figueras, to Singapore for a different match in August 2023, while Markle had stayed home.
Harry and Prince Seeiso of Lesotho — with whom he founded the South African-based charity in honor of their mothers, Princess Diana and The Queen Mother Mamohato Bereng Seeiso, in 2006 — resigned from the charity last week after Chanukaka refused to stand down as chair.
Chanukaka told Phllips that Harry authorized the release of his resignation letter without informing her or her directors, unleashing the “Sussex machine” upon her.
Sources close to Harry and Seeiso, however, told Page Six they informed Chanukaka of their departure in a letter on March 10, and did not, as she claimed, tell the press first.
Chanukaka has now made a complaint to the UK Charities commission and accused the founders of “misogynoir” — prejudice against black women.
A source close to the trustees and patrons told Page Six they “fully expected this publicity stunt and reached their collective decision with this in mind.
“[Harry and Prince Seeiso] remain firm in their resignation, for the good of the charity, and look forward to the adjudication of the truth.”
