The Norwegian Royal Family Drama Explained for Non-Scandinavians

You'd be forgiven for thinking that the only country in Europe with a royal family is Britain. We certainly act as though the empire is still thriving, but the Windsor lot has long attracted international attention seldom afforded to its continental cousins. The American tabloids simply don't care about the likes of King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands or Queen Mary of Denmark. The smaller royal households are also, generally speaking, more low-key and less obsessed with pomp compared to our rotten lot. I often hear it said that they're more “normal” than the British royals. A low bar to clear, yes? Well, across the North Sea, to the east of Dundee, the royal drama has reached a boiling point.

WHO ARE THE NORWEGIAN ROYALS?

A quick history! Norway’s monarchical roots date back to the founding of the nation in the 9th century, but the current royal family came about after the country became independent from Swedish rule in 1905. They had a referendum to decide whether or not to let this one Danish prince called Carl take the throne as the first new King of Norway in quite some time. Almost 79% of voters said Yes, and Prince Carl of Denmark became King Haakon VII. 

His grandson, Harald V, is the current reigning monarch, and from what I can tell, he's always been popular. In 1968, he married Sonja Haraldsen, a commoner whom he had dated for nine years. His parents did not approve, but he told his father that if he wouldn't marry the woman he loved, he'd die a bachelor. Not eager to force a potential crisis of succession, the wedding was allowed to take place. 

The pair have two kids: Martha Louise and Haakon. Because of the rules at the time, Haakon became the heir despite being the younger of the two. When he was 27, Haakon announced his own engagement, to Mette-Marit Tjessem Høiby, a waitress whom he met at a music festival. The news was a big shock at the time because Mette-Marit was both a single mother and a notorious party girl. Her ex had been convicted of drug-related offences and spent time in prison. Her reputation was that of a frivolous and uneducated woman who spent a lot of time at places where drugs were readily available. A lot of the coverage is carefully worded about this, never directly accusing her of being on drugs but making the implications clear. 

There was a lot of sympathy for Mette-Marit, too. The attacks on her status as a single mother who had a child out of wedlock felt hopelessly archaic in 2000, out of step with a country that celebrates its modernity. When she issued a teary-eyed apology for her past, people were won over to her side. Anyway, surely a modern monarchy should embrace modern women, and wouldn't someone who knew what life was like for real people be a good representative for Norway on the world stage?

The pair married in 2001 and had two kids: Ingrid-Alexandra, the heir (they changed the succession laws to allow women to inherit the throne), and Sverre Magnus. For the most part, the family seemed to have a good reputation and were part of the new generation of young, modern, and down-to-earth European royals. 

WHAT ABOUT MARTHA-LOUISE?

Haakon’s sister is, to put it mildly, a lunatic. She is a new age woo-woo snake oil saleswoman and has been for a long time. She claims she can talk to angels and animals, "trained" at alternative therapy centres that promote quackery, and married a "shaman" named Durek Veretti, who has been frequently referred to as a conspiracy theorist. Verrett has suggested that cancer is a matter of choice and has sold medals that he claimed could ward off COVID. 

While Martha Louise no longer uses her Royal Highness title, she has milked her princess status for commercial gain for years. The pair's wedding was slammed as a shameless display of greed, thanks to the pair selling exclusive photos of the event to Hello! magazine. In 2024, Norwegian media published recordings of Verrett admitting to sexually assaulting his clients during shamanic sessions. They're really awful. All the crap that royalists claim about Harry and Meghan would more accurately be applied to this loser pair. This would be embarrassing enough for the family, and at least they had distance from the nonsense since Martha Louise is no longer a working royal. But then some emails were published…

METTE-MARIT AND EPSTEIN

Between 2011 and 2014, Mette-Marit maintained a close friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, three years after he had been required to register as a sex offender. She wrote hundreds of emails to him, and they met many times. She’s mentioned in the Epstein files around 1,000 times. Their emails are cozy, often flirtatious, and frequently weird. In one, she asked Epstein if it would be appropriate to buy wallpaper with naked women on it for her teenage son. “You make me smile,” she wrote. She complained a lot about the boredom she felt during royal duties. In 2013, she stayed at his mansion in Palm Beach, although he wasn’t there at the time. 

In 2019, the year Epstein was arrested and then died, Mette-Marit was scrutinised for her closeness to Epstein, and she minimised the extent of her friendship with him. Her office claimed she had ceased communications in 2013, and that she had been unaware of his crimes. A 2011 email showed her admitting she had googled Epstein and “it didn’t look good :)” The beginning of 2026 allowed people to search through the files and see just how deeply enamoured with the paedophile Mette-Marit was. The Norwegian Prime Minister called her out and said she should fully disclose the extent and nature of their relationship. Norwegian police opened an investigation into citizens who may have committed criminal acts with Epstein. A number of the princess’s patronages were removed at the request of the charities, including one focused on sexual and reproductive health. 

This March, Mette-Marit gave an interview to NRK, the Norwegian public broadcaster, where she tearfully expressed regret at having ever met Epstein and claimed she felt "so manipulated" by their relationship. "It is incredibly important for me to take responsibility for not checking his background more carefully," she said, seemingly forgetting that she did Google him and responded to the revelations with a smiley face. The interview was criticised as defensive, vague, and self-serving. "She blew the possibility to come clean and to be honest," one Norwegian royal commentator told the BBC. 

Epstein, by the way, told a friend he thought Mette-Marit was “a mess.” 

METTE-MARIT’S HEALTH

To make matters worse for the crown princess, her health issues are numerous and life-threatening. She's dealt with blood pressure problems, a neck injury, a herniated disc, and several falls. In 2018, she was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis, a condition that leads to the irreversible scarring of the lungs. It has a typical life expectancy of five years after initial diagnosis. In recent months, her health has declined exponentially, and she was put on the lung transplant list. Her public appearances decreased. At a reception for the Norwegian team of the 2026 Winter Olympics, she used a nasal cannula connected to an oxygen tank. This week, it was announced that she'd undergone a successful transplant. 

THE RAPE TRIAL OF MARIUS

Mette-Marit's oldest child, Marius Borg Høiby, is not a prince. He doesn't have any titles or royal duties. But he has grown up in the royal life, raised in a palace, and with the benefits that come with having a mother who will one day be queen. But it didn't stop him from being jailed. 

Since 2017, Høiby has been involved in a ton of criminal issues, mostly related to speeding, drug use, violence, and breaching restraining orders. On 18 August 2025, prosecutors issued an indictment charging Høiby with four counts of rape and 34 additional offences. A number of women had publicly accused him of verbal and physical abuse, including Linni Meister, a model and personality, and Nora Haukland, a TV star from the Norwegian version of Love Island. Haukland became the only identifiable woman in the official court case, meaning she was subjected to a lot of harassment and death threats. Of the four charges of rape Høiby faced, it was alleged that he assaulted the women when they were drunk or asleep, and that he had taken photographs of them. In another instance, he was accused of raping a former girlfriend at the grounds of the crown prince and princess’s residence. 

The trial was one of the most watched in modern Norwegian history, making the front pages nearly every day. Throughout the trial, questions were raised over how much Mette-Marit knew about Marius’s behaviour and whether or not his royal-ish status earned him protection. Mette‑Marit was accused in the media of warning her son about his impending arrest and of attempting to influence witnesses. She and her husband have long paid for Marius's housing in an expensive part of Oslo (shockingly, he's unemployed) and are presumably footing his legal fees. Mette-Marit and Haakon have seemingly made a point of being seen visiting him in prison. His sister, Ingrid Alexandra, faced heat when a post from her private Instagram showed her complaining that her family was being unfairly treated. 

This week, Marius Borg Høiby was found guilty of 34 of 40 charges, including two counts of rape, abuse in close relationships, assault, drug possession and supply, and restraining order violations. The prosecution asked for seven years and seven months of prison time. He was sentenced to four. That seems extremely low, but in Norway, the legal system does not prioritize long prison sentences and is more focused on restorative justice. That hasn't stopped some from feeling that the now-convicted rapist is getting off lightly because of who he is. His lawyer said he would appeal the rape convictions and some of the domestic violence convictions. The $61,000 fee he has to pay the four women who accused him of rape will presumably be footed by his mother, but we don't know for sure. 

One intriguing detail that emerged during the trial was Høiby admitting that he searched for his own name online to see if there were any rumours about him being a rapist. This made me do the same thing, so I decided to do the same and browsed Norwegian corners of Reddit. Obviously, you should take all this stuff with a pinch of salt, but it wasn't hard to find comments pre-dating the arrests describing Høiby as a bully, drug fiend, and, yes, misogynist who couldn't keep his hands off women. It certainly seems to have been well known among the Oslo police force that Høiby liked to hang around with criminals and enjoyed various kinds of drugs. Many people alleged that his reputation was widely discussed, especially in Oslo circles, and everyone knew he was essentially untouchable. I wonder if he saw these comments.

I’m obviously not a fan of monarchies of any kind. My solution to most societal problems is “abolish the monarchy.” And this is obviously not my country, so I don’t get a say in it. But I do think it’s worth noting how problems like this are not made in a bubble. Fostering a system where you elevate one family to borderline godhood and imbue them with legal and financial powers beyond those of the rest of the planet will turn you into a dick. You could be surrounded by the smartest advisors and receive the greatest education, but that won’t always stop you from doing crap like becoming BFFs with a paedophile. Look at how Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor revelled in the glow of being around people richer and more powerful than himself. Being rich or famous or privileged doesn’t turn you into a rapist. Being sheltered from punishment certainly sends the message that being a rapist is of no consequence. 

This whole story is a hive of sleaze, corruption, ego, and stupidity. Frankly, everyone in this family comes across as deeply dumb. Did Mette-Marit really read about her pal being a sex offender against a teenage girl and think it was a minor oopsie? Does Haakon think he could ever be the ruler of a country, even one with no hard power, with this hanging over him? Does Martha Louise know, well, anything? The absolute bare minimum we require these parasites to do is not associate with paedophiles or assault women. Britain couldn’t do it, and now neither can Norway. How is that the thing our countries have in common? 

From what I’ve seen on Norwegian newspaper websites, support for a republic is rising, but it’s still a fringe issue. King Harald is 89 years old. Mette-Marit will soon be queen. Sounds ghastly to me. What’s Norwegian for “abolish the monarchy”?