Spas, cigarettes and hotels: Naomi Campbell banned from charity role after fund misuse

Fashion for Relief was billed as a charity that provided funding for environmental and humanitarian causes, but officials found hundreds of thousands in mismanaged funds.

Legendary supermodel Naomi Campbell has been banned from serving as a charity trustee for five years following a U.K. watchdog investigation that uncovered evidence of financial misconduct at her charity, Fashion for Relief.

Though the group was billed as a charitable organization that provided grants to help fund various environmental and humanitarian causes, officials said the charity was “poorly governed and had inadequate financial management.”

The U.K.’s regulatory Charity Commission launched an inquiry into Fashion for Relief in 2021 and published a report of its findings on Thursday.

Funds that should have been used for charitable causes instead paid for luxury hotel rooms, spa treatments, room service and cigarettes, the commission wrote. Between April 2016 and July 2022, the probe found only 8.5 per cent of Fashion for Relief’s overall expenditure was spent on charitable grants.

Campbell, 54, has not commented publicly on the report.

As a result of the misconduct, the commission barred Campbell and two others from future trusteeship.

Bianka Hellmich, also a Fashion for Relief trustee, was banned for nine years after officials discovered she received £290,000 (about C$524,400) payment in unauthorized consultancy fees.

Another trustee, Veronica Chou, received a four-year ban.