Naomi Campbell is no longer barred from charity work after winning her fight against a five-year trustee ban.
The model prevailed in a tribunal challenge after judges concluded she had been kept in the dark about serious misconduct at Fashion for Relief, the organization she created.
The panel found that fellow trustee Bianka Hellmich used “forged documents” and concealed key financial issues from Campbell.
“Ms Campbell was not involved in, and did not know of, that conduct,” the judges said.
Campbell was disqualified in 2024 after a Charity Commission investigation into the charity’s finances and governance. The watchdog had cited spending that included hotel costs, spa treatments, room service and cigarettes, as well as large unauthorized payments to a trustee but Campbell later argued that she had been misled and had trusted the wrong person.
“My only mistake” was trusting Hellmich, she told the tribunal.
The judges agreed that Campbell shared some responsibility for administrative failures, including late financial filings, but said that did not justify keeping her banned from trustee roles. They also shot down claims that Campbell was trying to manage public perception through her testimony, finding her evidence “entirely honest.”
Fashion for Relief, which Campbell launched to raise money for humanitarian causes, was dissolved and removed from the charity register in 2024.
Campbell said she did not see the charity’s collapse as her personal failure.
“I look at it as me trusting someone that I knew, someone that was a lawyer,” she said.
