Naomi Campbell has been banned from being a charity trustee after a watchdog found widespread misconduct at a charity she founded, including funds being used to pay for the supermodel’s stay at a five-star hotel in the south of France.
Campbell was disqualified for five years after the Charity Commission found serious mismanagement of finances at Fashion for Relief.
The regulator found evidence of unreasonable fundraising expenditure, including 9,400 euros (£7,800) being spent on a three-night stay at a five-star hotel in Cannes for Campbell.
The trustees “failed to show how these were cost-effective and an appropriate use of the charity’s resources”, the Charity Commission said.
The watchdog examined expenses incurred by Campbell totalling nearly 7,940 euros (£6,600), alongside the hotel stay, paid for by the charity.
It also found funds had been spent on Campbell’s spa treatments, room service and cigarettes.
Campbell was one of three of its trustees to be disqualified as a result of the Charity Commission’s probe.
Its inquiry found that between April 2016 and July 2022, 8.5 per cent of the charity’s overall expenditure was on charitable grants.
Fashion for Relief was founded by Campbell in 2005 to unite the fashion industry to relieve poverty and advance health and education, by making grants to other organisations and giving resources towards global disasters.
The charity was dissolved and removed from the register of charities earlier this year.
Some £344,000 has been recovered and a further £98,000 of charitable funds protected, the regulator said.
It also said it found some fundraising expenditures to be misconduct or mismanagement by the charity’s trustees.
This included a 14,800 euro (£12,300) flight from London to Nice in 2018 for transferring art and jewellery.
In these cases, the trustees “failed to show how these were cost-effective and an appropriate use of the charity’s resources”, the Charity Commission said.
Bianka Hellmich has been disqualified as a trustee for nine years, and Veronica Chou for four years, as well as Campbell’s five-year ban.
The Charity Commission’s assistant director for specialist investigations and standards, Tim Hopkins, said:“Trustees are legally required to make decisions that are in their charity’s best interests and to comply with their legal duties and responsibilities. Our inquiry has found that the trustees of this charity failed to do so, which has resulted in our action to disqualify them.
“This inquiry, and the work of the interim managers we appointed to run the charity in place of the trustees, has resulted in the recovery of £344,000 and protection of a further £98,000 charitable funds. I am pleased that the inquiry has seen donations made to other charities which this charity has previously supported.”
