by Jeroslyn JoVonn
September 27, 2024
Naomi Campbell is accused of misappropriating funds from the charity she launched to help impoverished youth.
Naomi Campbell has been banned from being a charity trustee due to allegedly misappropriating funds.
A government investigation revealed extensive evidence of financial misconduct at the UK-based poverty relief charity, the legendary supermodel established in 2005 and registered in 2015. As a result, Campbell was banned from charity work for five years after the UK’s Charity Commission found that Fashion for Relief donated only a small portion of the millions raised through its celebrity fashion events to charitable causes.
According to the Commission, the charity misused tens of thousands of pounds to splurge on luxury hotels, flights, spa treatments, personal security, and cigarettes for Campbell. Additionally, hundreds of thousands of unauthorized consultancy payments were made to one of her fellow trustees, who was also banned. Bianka Hellmich was banned for nine years, while Veronica Chou received a four-year ban.
“I’ve just found out today about the findings, and I am extremely concerned,” Campbell, 54, told AP, as cited by BBC.
The fashion powerhouse claims that she was not the person “in control” of the charity.
The investigation was launched following complaints from Save the Children and the Mayor’s Fund for London, who reported Fashion for Relief to regulators in 2020 after not receiving the promised payments from fundraising agreements. The Commission soon found that between 2016 and 2021, Fashion for Relief raised nearly £4.8 million through fashion shows but disbursed only £389,000 in grants to partner charities after deducting event costs and other expenses. Interim managers appointed by the Commission later recovered nearly £350,000 from the charity, which was subsequently distributed to Save the Children and the Mayor’s Fund for London.
For her part, Hellmich had voluntarily suggested repaying the £290,000 she received for consultancy services, but the interim managers appointed by the Commission successfully ensured repayments to the charity. The funds Hellmich received were in breach of the charity’s constitution. The full amount she received was repaid in April 2023.
The inquiry report revealed poor financial management and disorganized record-keeping, including a lack of documentation for invoices, receipts, and formal minutes of meetings and decisions, as well as outsourcing administrative and accounting tasks. The Commission found multiple examples of financial misconduct, including €14,800 spent on a flight that took a former unnamed trustee and an unnamed donor to a fundraising event in Cannes in May 2018.
While there, Campbell stayed at a hotel that cost €3,000 per night and incurred over €4,000 in personal security expenses. Additional charges to the charity included nearly €8,000 on spa treatments, room service, cigarettes, and other hotel amenities. Campbell was at the hotel for six nights, but only two of those nights were related to the charity event.
Campbell and Hellmich claimed the hotel expenses incurred by the charity were later billed to an unnamed donor; however, the Commission found no evidence that Fashion for Relief had received any donor payments to cover these costs.
Campbell founded Fashion for Relief in 2005 to raise funds to combat poverty and assist economically disadvantaged youth. However, by November 2021, the Commission launched a formal inquiry into the charity, suspending Campbell and Hellmich. During the investigation, interim managers found that the charity was essentially insolvent, lacking enough cash to settle its debts, and it was ultimately dissolved in March.
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