Memory and charity are fickle things, as the poor prince keeps finding out.
My heart aches for Prince Harry. Just days before Mother’s Day, the news broke that he has stepped down as co-founding patron of Sentebale, the charity he established in memory of his mother, Princess Diana. The timing alone must make this an especially painful blow.
Sentebale—which means “Forget Me Not” in Sesotho—was founded in 2006 to support vulnerable children and young people in Lesotho and Botswana, including those living with HIV and Aids. These causes were deeply personal to Diana, who broke taboos in the 1980s by openly embracing those suffering from the disease. At just 22, Harry sought to carry on her legacy. Now, it seems, that legacy has suffered a devastating setback.
A charity in crisis
The turmoil at Sentebale came to a head when its chair, Sophie Chandauka, refused to step down despite pressure from the board. In protest, all other board members resigned, leaving the charity in crisis mode.
Just last year, Chandauka had nothing but praise for Prince Harry, telling People magazine:
“He is principled and really cares. He is energetic and hard-working, as well as being blessed with a wife like Meghan who makes it possible for him to do this.”
Yet now, she has delivered what appears to be a calculated public attack on Harry, accusing him of playing the “victim narrative” and engaging in “vanity projects” that he abandons at will.
The language is striking. It feels designed to fuel the media frenzy surrounding Harry—an attack crafted with precision, given Chandauka’s position as Head of Risk Management and Intelligence at Meta. This is a woman who understands media manipulation; after all, she works for the company that gave us Facebook, a platform notorious for amplifying division and outrage.
And to make matters worse, Chandauka made her damning remarks in the Daily Mail—the very newspaper that Harry is suing for phone-hacking. The irony is almost unbearable.
The weight of Diana’s memory
There is another tragedy in all of this: Princess Diana’s ever-present shadow over Harry’s life.
Psychologists describe flashbulb memories—moments of intense shock that become permanently seared into our minds, recalled in vivid detail as if lit by a camera flash. Diana’s death was a global flashbulb moment.
For the world, it was an unforgettable tragedy. For Harry, it was a wound that has never healed. Every public move he makes is framed through his mother’s legacy—a burden he has carried from childhood into adulthood.
When he founded Sentebale, it was a way to honour Diana. But I wonder whether he ever reflects on how we misremember her—how the fairy-tale image of “the People’s Princess” obscures the fierce battles she had to fight.
In 1987, when Aids was a disease shrouded in stigma, Diana famously held the hand of an Aids patient in front of the press, shattering the misconception that the illness could be spread through touch. She didn’t just lend her name to charities—she risked everything to make a difference.
When her friend Adrian Ward-Jackson was dying of Aids, she drove through the night to be by his side. She ignored royal protocol, defied expectations, and stood firm against the establishment.
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In 1996, following her divorce from Prince Charles, she was forced to step down from over 100 charities—yet she kept her patronage of the National Aids Trust. She fought for the causes she cared about until the very end.
Harry’s struggle for purpose
I am no royalist, but it’s hard not to feel sympathy for Prince Harry’s dwindling role in public life.
Since his departure from the Royal Family, he has been stripped of titles, security, and responsibilities. Now, one of the last tangible links to his mother’s legacy has been taken from him—or perhaps, forced from his grasp.
The media will have a field day with this latest drama, eager to paint Harry as reckless and irresponsible. But the real tragedy here is the children that Sentebale was created to help—those who are now at risk as the charity’s leadership implodes.
As global aid budgets are slashed, the United Nations warns that six million more people will die in the next four years due to the Trump administration’s decision to freeze funding overnight.
While the world fixates on Harry and Chandauka’s spat, we risk forgetting the true human cost of this crisis. What would Diana say if she saw a charity set up in her honour collapsing under a cloud of bitterness and infighting?
Would she be disappointed in Harry? Perhaps. But I suspect she’d be far more disappointed in all of us.
