The excruciating video showing Meghan Markle moving Sentebale chief away from her husband has taken on new importance after it was claimed the polo event was gatecrashed by the former Suits star with Serena Williams and a Netflix crew in tow.
The Duchess of Sussex forced Dr Sophie Chandauka to duck under the trophy as Harry celebrated the Royal Salute Polo Challenge in Wellington, Florida, in support of Sentebale’s work.
Moments before, Meghan had kissed her husband to celebrate his win – with a Netflix camera crew there to capture the moment for his TV series on polo.
The footage of Meghan and Dr Chandauka with Harry at the centre has been watched millions of times online in the past year but is being viewed again in a new light after Dr Chandauka’s bombshell interview with Sky News yesterday where she discussed the notorious clip.
Meghan had caused ‘disruption’ and a very crowded stage after turning up at short notice and bringing her ‘very famous friend’ Serena Williams, the chair of Harry’s charity claimed. Dr Chandauka also called their brand ‘toxic’ and accusing Harry of ‘harassment and bullying at scale’ – a claim that is denied.
She also claims that, prior to the charity Polo event in April 2024, Meghan confirmed she would not be attending. But she then arrived with her tennis legend friend Serena.
Speaking to Sky News’ Trevor Phillips, Dr Chandauka recalled the events of the chaotic event, telling him: ‘We would have been really excited had we known ahead of time [Meghan was coming], but we didn’t.
‘And so the choreography went badly on stage because we had too many people on stage. 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.
‘Prince Harry asked me to issue some sort of a statement in support of the Duchess, and 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.’
Meghan was filmed asking Dr Chandauka not to stand next to the duke at the trophy presentation.
The former actress could be seen in video footage from Hello requesting that Dr Chandauka move to another spot in the group, insisting that she be in the middle of the huddle next to her husband.
Moments before, Meghan had kissed her husband to celebrate his win.
In the footage from April 2024, Dr Chandauka, who was stood on the Duke’s right, was asked twice by Meghan to move to her left side away from Harry, as he kept his arm around his wife.
Others therefore had to shuffle around them to find a place, with Dr Chandauka awkwardly having to duck under the trophy to get into the position Meghan was asking her to stand in. Dr Chandauka then said something inaudible to her.
‘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.
‘Prince Harry asked me to issue some sort of a statement in support of the Duchess, and 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.’
Royal expert Richard Fitzwilliams said Meghan’s unexpected appearance at the event ’caused confusion’, describing the incident between the Duchess and Dr Chavunduka onstage as ‘awkward’.
‘Meghan was not expected at a polo match in 2024 and this caused confusion which was symptomatic of the chaos which Dr Chavunduka claims the charity had descended into,’ he told .
‘She refused to issue a statement in support of Meghan, there had been an awkward incident between them.’
Mr Fitzwilliams added: ‘The ferocious feud that has split Sentebale, which Prince Harry co-founded in memory of his beloved mother, Princess Diana, will be a bitter blow to him, as he now has no link with a charity that he has been involved with since 2006, when he co-founded it.’
The expert also said the accusations of ‘bullying against’ Harry – claims the Duke’s representatives have strongly denied – echo previous accusations of bullying against his wife Meghan – also strongly denied.
2006: Prince Harry founds Sentebale in honour of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales.
The charity was founded to help people in southern Africa living with HIV and Aids.
January 2020: Harry and Meghan announce on Instagram their decision to ‘step back’ as senior members of the British royal family, and split their time between the United Kingdom and North America.
In damning claims today, Sentebale chairman Dr Sophie Chandauka said the charity lose key sponsors when Harry left Britain.
‘There was quite a significant correlation between the time the organisation started to see a departure of major organisations and Prince Harry’s departure from the UK itself,’ she said.
April 2024: Meghan’s ‘awkward’ encounter with Dr Chandauka onstage at a charity polo event after the Duchess turned up at short notice and asked the charity chairman to move away from Harry.
Early 2025: This year, a dispute arose between Dr Chandauka and the board of trustees.
The dispute resulted in the board asking her to resign as chair.
March 26, 2025: Harry’s resignation from Sentebale came this week amid allegations of bullying, harassment, sexism and racism made by Dr Chandauka – claims that are strongly denied.
‘Harry has been accused of ‘bullying and harassment’. There are echoes here of the allegations against Meghan which appeared in the Times before the infamous interview they gave on Oprah, which she strongly denied,’ Mr Fitzwilliams said.
‘However they have recently surfaced in The Hollywood Reporter and Vanity Fair. They will surely adversely affect the Sussexes image.’
Last week, Prince Harry announced that he and several trustees had quit Sentebale, the charity he set up with Prince Seeiso of Lesotho in 2006, amid a boardroom battle within the organisation.
Dr Chandauka, who has been chairwoman of Sentebale since 2023, accused the duke of being ‘involved’ in a ‘cover-up’ of an investigation about bullying, harassment and misogyny at the organisation and said the ‘toxicity’ of his ‘brand’ had impacted the charity.
A source close to the former trustees of the Sentebale charity described Dr Chandauka’s claims that she was bullied and harassed, briefed against by Prince Harry, or that the Sussex machine was ‘unleashed on her’ as ‘completely baseless’.
Dr Chandauka also claimed that before the event, an opportunity for Sentebale to do a charity Polo Challenge in Miami was ruined when Harry insisted on bringing his Netflix camera crew along.
‘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 include some footage in this show,” she said.
‘And so the team called me and told me, ‘Oh, Prince Harry’s made this request, so we’re doing the things’.
‘I said, you can’t be doing the things without seeking consent from the property owners, the sponsors, all the guests. Nobody signed up to being on a Netflix show.’
She added: ‘We come up with draft agreements and of course, the venue owner says this is now a commercial undertaking.
‘So here are my terms. We couldn’t afford it. So now we lost the venue.’
In an astonishing message to Harry the chairman also said: ‘The team is resolved that Sentebale will live on, with or without you.’
Harry’s two-month trip to the kingdom of Lesotho during his gap year aged 19 inspired him to establish the charity two years later in honour of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales.
The young duke came face-to-face with Aids orphans, met other traumatised young people and visited herd boys living a harsh existence looking after cattle in remote mountain areas.
has contacted the Sussexes for comment.
‘There was quite a significant correlation between the time the organisation started to see a departure of major organisations and Prince Harry’s departure from the UK itself,’ Dr Chandauka said.
‘Then when you discuss with the senior executive team and ask why there isn’t a conversation about this, the answer is it’s really difficult to have this conversation because the instruction was it’s an uncomfortable conversation to have with Prince Harry in the room,’ she said.
Interviewer Trevor Phillips said: ‘Before we come to that, let me just get this to be absolutely clear here. You’re saying Sophie, number one, that, what you discovered was essentially donors were walking because of the Prince’s reputation.’
Dr Chandauka replied: ‘Yes.’
The charity chairman said: ‘Prince Harry decides, on this specific occasion, that he wants to appoint an individual to the board, with immediate effect, without having talked to me. It’s not on the agenda and somehow everybody’s just supposed to tolerate that.’
‘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 include some footage in this show.’ And so the team called me and told me, ‘Oh, Prince Harry’s made this request, so we’re doing the things’.
‘I said, you can’t be doing the things without seeking consent from the property owners, the sponsors, all the guests. Nobody signed up to being on a Netflix show.
‘And so we have this discussion about the need to talk to everybody. We come up with draft agreements and of course, the venue owner says this is now a commercial undertaking. So here are my terms. We couldn’t afford it. So now we lost the venue.’
‘It was me who was the problem because I put a whistleblower complaint about the bullying, the harassment and the misogyny and Prince Harry interfered in the investigation of that.’