Naomi Campbell called unfit to run a charity in her appeal against ban

Naomi Campbell showed herself to be unfit to run a charity after the supermodel “completely abdicated” her responsibilities as a trustee of her now defunct Fashion for Relief project, according to the charity watchdog. The Charity Commission told a tribunal that Campbell, who is trying to overturn a five-year ban on running a charity, was “highly culpable” for mismanagement and misuse of funds at Fashion for Relief, the former charity she founded in 2015. It said Campbell had shown an “absence of the competence that could be expected” from a trustee when she delegated oversight of the charity to a fellow trustee and failed to properly engage even when it became clear there were problems . Lawyers for Campbell rejected the commission’s claims, arguing the watchdog had treated her as a “high-profile scalp”. They said she was a victim of fraud who had made an honest mistake and had not derived any personal benefit from the charity. Fashion for Relief, which had raised millions of pounds for anti-poverty projects through a series of glitzy high-profile fashion events hosted by Campbell, was wound up in March 2024 after managers sent in by the commission found it was insolvent. The commission’s inquiry report on Fashion for Relief, published six months later, highlighted shambolic financial management, misconduct and chaotic record-keeping, including failure to keep receipts or minutes of meetings and decisions. …