By AFP – Agence France Presse
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Former supermodel Naomi Campbell on Saturday hit back at a UK watchdog after it banned her from running a charity for five years.
The Charity Commission identified “multiple instances of misconduct” in the running of Fashion for Relief including use of charity money to pay for her to stay in a five-star hotel in the south of France, including spa treatments and room service.
But Campbell called the body’s findings “deeply flawed” and said she had instructed new advisers to investigate what happened at the charity.
“First of all, I recognise that, as the face of Fashion for Relief, I am ultimately responsible for its conduct,” Campbell, 54, said in a statement released late Friday to the PA news agency.
“Unfortunately, I was not involved in the day-to-day operations of the organisation, and I entrusted the legal and operational management to others,” she said.
The watchdog probe published on Thursday found that between April 2016 and July 2022, only 8.5 percent of Fashion for Relief’s overall expenditure went on grants to charities.
Campbell, 54, has now been disqualified from running a charity for five years. Two other trustees also received bans.
Campbell, who in 1987 became the first black model in 20 years to feature on the cover of UK Vogue, achieved worldwide fame in the 1990s and remains a highly influential figure in the industry.
She insisted she had “never been paid a fee for my participation in Fashion for Relief nor billed any personal expenses to the organisation”.
Campbell’s charity, which she set up in 2005, held a string of glitzy, star-studded events to raise funds for causes in London and Cannes.
These were said to include projects ranging from supporting child refugees, to helping victims of the Ebola crisis and the 2011 Japanese earthquake and tsunami.
She said she is considering all options including requesting an appeal.
har/gv
