Naomi Campbell admits failures at fashion charity but denies misconduct

Naomi Campbell has admitted she failed in her duties as a trustee at the Fashion for Relief charity she founded – but has insisted she never engaged in financial misconduct or used the charity for personal gain during its chaotic nine-year existence.

Campbell was last week banned from running a charity for five years after a scathing report found she and her two fellow trustees were culpable for multiple incidents of serious misconduct and financial mismanagement.

Fashion for Relief raised nearly £4.8m from fashion show fundraisers over five years to 2020 but gave just 10% of the £4.6m proceeds to partner charities in the form of grants, the Charity Commission inquiry found.

It revealed that the charity – which was set up to raise money for good causes around the world – spent tens of thousands of pounds on luxury hotel rooms, spa treatments, personal security and cigarettes for Campbell at a Fashion for Relief charity fashion event.

A spokesperson for Campbell said she “acknowledges and accepts her accountability” as a Fashion for Relief trustee. While she admitted she “may not have been as actively engaged in the charity’s day-to-day operations as she should have been”, she said she had “never engaged in any form of financial misconduct”.

A statement issued on behalf of Campbell on Friday said: “For over three decades, [Campbell] has dedicated herself tirelessly to charitable causes, always with the sole intention of helping others and never for personal gain. Naomi has never received payment for her involvement with Fashion for Relief, nor has she billed any personal expenses to the organisation.”

The statement also addresses a Guardian report that revealed Fashion for Relief was the subject of a “serious incident report” filed to the commission by Unicef UK after the global children’s charity was incorrectly named as a fundraising partner at a Fashion for Relief London fashion week charity event in September 2019.

Campbell’s spokesperson said Fashion for Relief had been involved in “ongoing meetings and discussions” about a fundraising collaboration with Unicef prior to the event, and had prepared promotional materials in anticipation. Press articles and social media referred to Fashion for Relief partnering with Unicef before and after the event.

The spokesperson said: “At the last minute, the collaboration did not go ahead. All efforts were made to remove the Unicef brand from event materials. Unicef was not included in the event invitation or website, and Naomi’s speech made no mention of Unicef.”

Campbell’s team considers the use of the Unicef brand on promotional materials an honest mistake made in good faith. A spokesperson said that, after the 2019 event, Fashion for Relief had discussions with Unicef UK about a potential future fundraising collaboration but this did not go ahead because of the Covid pandemic.

Unicef said it had nothing to add to a statement it made earlier this week in which it said it had never held any official partnership with Fashion for Relief and never received any funds from the 2019 event.

Unicef UK filed the serious incident report in 2022 after it became aware its brand had been used in association with the event. Charities are required to tell the commission when they experience “adverse events” that they consider result in harm to beneficiaries, financial loss, or damage to their reputation.

Save the Children and The Mayor’s Fund for London have said they were owed money after partnering with Fashion for Relief on fundraising events. They later received £200,000 and £50,000 respectively when Fashion for Relief was wound up by commission managers in 2023.

The serious incident report was considered by the commission during its two-and-a-half-year inquiry into Fashion for Relief. The inquiry report details extraordinary examples of chaotic management and poor record-keeping at the charity over a number of years, together with multiple breaches of trustees’ legal duties.

These include unsanctioned consultancy and expenses payments of £290,000 over two years to a Fashion for Relief trustee, Bianka Hellmich. The payments, authorised retrospectively by Campbell, were made in breach of their legal duties as trustees. Hellmich, who last week received a nine-year trustee ban, repaid the money after the commission intervened.