The royal family of Norway is going through a series of scandals. What you need to know

The royal family in Norway has been at the center of several scandals at the same time. The Crown Prince's wife, Crown Princess Mette-Marit, had a lengthy correspondence with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein and made a number of provocative statements. On the same days that this became known, the trial of her illegitimate son, who is accused of rape, began. Before that, the king's eldest daughter was criticized for practicing alternative medicine and marrying a shaman. How one of the oldest monarchies in the world lives is in the Izvestia article.

How the Norwegian monarchy works

The Norwegian monarchy is one of the oldest in the world. Its history has been counted since 872. The current King Harald V, who has ruled since 1991, is the 64th monarch in the country's history. Since 1884, the king's power has been limited by parliament and is nominal, and since 1905, after the collapse of the union with Sweden, the monarch has ruled only on the territory of Norway.

• Only the legitimate descendants of the king who ascended the throne can inherit the Norwegian throne. This is how Norway differs from many other European kingdoms, where theoretically the monarch's brothers can inherit the title. At the same time, the male descendants become the first in line, and only then the female. In the history of Norway, there was only one Queen Margrethe I, who ruled in 1387-1389.

• Currently, the Crown Prince of Norway is the only son of Harald V, Haakon, who has children Ingrid Alexandra and Sverre Magnus, born in a marriage with Princess Mette-Marit. At the same time, the Crown Prince has an older sister, Martha Louise, who is fourth in line to the throne, but will lose this right after her brother's coronation. In the absence of heirs, the new king is chosen by the Parliament of Norway.

The Norwegian royal family owns several residences, the main of which is the Royal Palace in Oslo. The King, his wife and heirs are exempt from paying taxes and reporting on their finances. The rest of the family members have these privileges since birth, but lose them after marriage.

The scandals with Princess Mette-Marit

In recent days, the Norwegian royal family has been rocked by scandals that leave stains on its reputation. Criticism of the monarchy intensified after the files on the Jeffrey Epstein case were published in the United States. They included a lengthy correspondence between the financier and the Crown Prince's wife, Mette-Marit. The public was already aware of their relationship, which began in 2011, when Epstein was already convicted of organizing child prostitution. However, the princess always downplayed the scale of their contacts and claimed that she had stopped communicating.

• The documents showed that Mette-Marit and Epstein had been in contact for several years. The princess confessed to him that she had learned about his criminal past, but continued to correspond and accepted his invitation to visit a villa in Florida where girls were raped. In the correspondence, she called the financier a "cutie," and he jokingly called her a "pervert." One day, Mette-Marit asked Epstein about photographs of naked women, from which she wanted to make murals for her 15-year-old illegitimate son Marius Borg Heiby. They also discussed Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita, which Mette-Marit called "sweetness." In addition, she once complained about how boring the royal family was.

• Mette-Marit has previously been criticized by the Norwegian media, and her appearance in the royal family has been called a scandal. She comes from a working-class family, and her father was twice convicted of violent crimes. Mette-Marit had several relationships with criminals, and her first son, Marius, was born to a man who was serving a sentence for cocaine trafficking. By the age of 27, when her engagement to Prince Haakon was announced, she had not yet had a university degree and received it 12 years later. Mette-Marit is currently undergoing treatment for pulmonary fibrosis, which has reached a stage where she will need a lung transplant.

Other scandals with family members

• Mette-Marit's son Marius is not officially a member of the royal family, but his behavior also affects her image. In 2017, he was first convicted of drug possession. Seven years later, he was arrested again on a number of more serious charges: raping his girlfriend, domestic violence, violating a restraining order and driving without a driver's license. Later, Marius was additionally accused of assault and threats with a knife. He has been continuously detained since 2024. During the investigation, Mette-Marit was further criticized for allegedly putting pressure on witnesses and asking the police to ease the detention regime for her son. His trial began on the same days that his mother's correspondence with Epstein became known and will end in March 2026.

Marius Borg Heiby, the eldest son of the Crown Princess of Norway. Biography

• The life of the King's eldest daughter, Princess Martha Louise, is also being actively discussed in Norway. She is a proponent of alternative medicine and ran her own center, which provided clairvoyance and spiritualism services. Martha Louise was married to writer Ari Ben and had three children with him. The couple divorced in 2017, and shortly after that, the former husband of the princess committed suicide.

• In 2019, Martha Louise announced that she was in a relationship with American Durek Verrett. He calls himself a sixth-generation shaman who received supernatural powers from his ancestors who were slaves in the United States. Verrett publicly declared his belief in various conspiracy theories and was involved in the sale of medallions allegedly treating COVID-19. In 2024, the couple got married and held a wedding ceremony, which they sold the rights to cover to the British newspaper Hello.

Support for the monarchy

• Despite the numerous scandals in the Norwegian royal family, she continues to enjoy the public's favor. Before the trial of Marius began and the Mette-Marit correspondence became known, polls showed that 72% of Norwegians supported the preservation of the monarchy. After recent incidents, support for the royal family dropped to 61%, and 27% of respondents expressed the idea of establishing a republic.

• At the same time, attitudes towards individual members of the royal family vary greatly. The vast majority of Norwegians have a positive attitude towards 88-year-old King Harald V and his wife Sonja. At the same time, 44% of respondents have a negative attitude towards the fact that Mette-Marit may become queen in the future, while only 33% of Norwegians positively assessed this possibility.

• The issue of the abolition of the monarchy is periodically discussed in Parliament on the initiative of the Social Democrats and left-wing parties. In 2019, a vote was held, following which only 20% of deputies supported the replacement of the monarchical form of government with a republic. A new discussion took place after the publication of the correspondence between Mette-Marit, and then the transition to a republic was already supported by 15% of parliamentarians.