Buckingham Palace has appeared to criticise the charity boss at the centre of a royal race row — Ngozi Fulani — after she appeared on ITV's Good Morning Britain on Wednesday to discuss the abuse she experienced after speaking out.
Ngozi Fulani revealed she has resigned from her post as CEO of Sistah Space due to the backlash to the incident.
A Buckingham Palace spokesperson has claimed that after a reconciliation meeting in December it was “agreed that no further media comment would be made.”
Fulani and a senior member of the royal household – Lady Susan Hussey – were embroiled in a racism scandal last November after an interaction at a reception hosted by the Queen Consort to raise awareness of violence against women and girls.
At the reception, Lady Hussey – who was at the time Lady of the Household – repeatedly asked Fulani where she was “really from”. Fulani went public with her experience and Lady Hussey stepped down from her honorary position.
In December, the two women took part in a reconciliation meeting in which Hussey is said to have apologised for the hurt she caused.
During her appearance on GMB, Fulani announced that she was temporarily stepping down so the charity can continue with its work providing support to women of Caribbean and African descent who are victims of domestic violence, undisturbed by controversy.
She also expressed her displeasure that the palace has not apologised to her privately, and claimed that the palace did not “intervene” when she experienced abuse after going public.
“Who are they apologising to? If you’re sorry tell me you’re sorry, if you’re not it speaks for itself.”
“If you have to ask somebody for an apology, it’s not an apology”, the campaigner also said.
“The Sistah Space charity has suffered, directly suffered as a result. When you think that this was supposed to be for violence against women and girls, because of this incident the violence has been directed to me. The palace hasn’t intervened, I think they could have”.
However, Fulani said she did not “regret” going public with what happened to her
“Listen, I’m about discussing and making aware violence against women and girls and I’ll go anywhere at anytime to fight that cause. I didn’t expect for that to be directed at me at all”.
A Buckingham Palace spokesperson responded by saying that after the reconciliation meeting in December “a joint statement was issued, in full agreement with Ms Fulani”.
The went on to say that “it was recognised that no malice had been intended by Lady Susan.
"In the statement following the incident, a number of pledges were made by the Palace which have all been honoured – including enhancing Diversity and Inclusivity programmes."
The spokesperson added: “For the avoidance of any doubt, we are sorry for the incident that took place and apologise for the distress and difficulty it caused to Ms Fulani."
When Lady Hussey’s comments were first made public they were swiftly condemned by Prince William – Hussey’s godson – whose spokesperson said it was “right” she had stepped down from her position in the royal household.
The spokesperson said at the time: “I was really disappointed to hear about the guest's experience at Buckingham Palace last night.
"Obviously, I wasn’t there, but Racism has no place in our society. The comments were unacceptable, and it is right that the individual has stepped aside with immediate effect.” By Emma Mackenzie, Yahoo News
