The princess and her ‘monster’ son: A royal family faces a moral reckoning

The plea to the press was emphatic and heartfelt when Crown Princess Mette-Marit asked for privacy for her son as he was about to turn 20.

The Norwegian princess worried that the media had revealed some of his “youthful recklessness” when she believed he should be allowed to live his own life. She reminded everyone that her son, Marius Borg Høiby, was not in line to the throne.

“Life is fragile. And beautiful,” she wrote in a public statement in January 2017. “Marius does not want to live a life in public.” She described him as a rare and beautiful young man.

Høiby is now caught in the public glare of a scandalous criminal trial, accused of rape and physical abuse against four women. He denies these charges, but has admitted to drug use and violence. Earlier this month, prosecutors asked the court to sentence him to seven years in prison. It may take until June for the three judges – there is no jury – to deliver their verdict.

Mette-Marit, meanwhile, is trapped in a scandal of her own. Her friendly email exchanges with Jeffrey Epstein were revealed in humiliating detail by the US Department of Justice just seven weeks ago. Last week, she apologised for her friendship with the convicted sex offender in a sit-down interview with the nation’s public broadcaster – and renewed a national debate about whether she has really come clean about what she saw at his Florida estate.

The Norwegian royal family, for so long an exemplar of stability, is now a source of shame. There are open doubts about whether it can survive.

There are questions about how Mette-Marit could fall into Epstein’s tawdry world. And there is huge concern that a privileged young man, given every advantage in prosperous Oslo, could end up accused of taking videos of himself while he abused women.

“The monarchy now is in the worst shape it’s been in for a long, long time,” said Niklas Kokkinn-Thoresen, the editor-in-chief of Se og Hør magazine, whose title translates as See and Hear. He covered the claims against Høiby before the police acted, and he has spoken to women who say they were abused. He reported on the princess and Epstein before the latest revelations.

The Norwegian monarchy, he said in a recent interview, is yet to act on all its challenges. Kokkinn-Thoresen pointed to the experience in Britain, where Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor has been stripped of his honours and titles, to reflect on the dilemma in Norway.

While King Charles III acted on public outrage over the ties to Epstein, the Norwegian royal family has been slow to respond.

“Charles and the royal family in England managed to address their problems – like the way he took his brother and stripped him of everything,” he told this masthead in Oslo. “That’s what we’re missing here.”

Kokkinn-Thoresen noted a key difference. The man formerly known as Prince Andrew remains in the line of succession – for now – but is not seen as a future king. In Norway, however, Mette-Marit is one step away from being queen. She is married to Crown Prince Haakon, the heir to the throne, and has been the future queen since their wedding in 2001. There are few ways to insulate the royal family from her mistake – barring, of course, divorce.

There is a moral reckoning to this scandal. As in other countries, the public concern is about how those at the very top of society – the global elite, for want of a better phrase – could so eagerly join the Epstein circle.

Could they really not see the real Epstein? Or, worse, did they see much more than they now admit?

For herself and her son, Mette-Marit acted as if she could neatly divide her private life from her public duties. For modern royalty, however, that divide no longer exists.

Mette-Marit is not accused of any wrongdoing, but she has to explain her appalling judgment. For many, she has let down the monarch, King Harald, 89, and his wife, Queen Sonja, 88, who have huge public support, and thereby confirmed the fears when she married into the family.

Haakon defied public opinion when he married Mette-Marit, who was seen by members of his own family as a controversial choice. She had been in several relationships before meeting the Crown Prince, and she already had a son, Høiby. Some of her relatives had been in trouble with the law over violence or drugs.

Over time, however, the public warmed to her. Høiby became a member of the family, albeit without royal status. The Crown Princess gave birth to a daughter, Ingrid Alexandra, and a son, Sverre Magnus. The future of the royal family seemed assured: Ingrid Alexandra, the next in line to the throne after her father, is living her own life. She arrived in Australia in May last year to study at the University of Sydney.

The family had other problems: Haakon’s sister, Märtha Louise, made headlines by marrying an American self-styled shaman. By and large, however, everything appeared to be going smoothly. Until Epstein.

‘Manipulated and deceived’

Mette-Marit sought to explain her friendship with the sex offender in the interview aired last week. She told broadcaster NRK she never saw anything illegal. She said she had been introduced to Epstein by a close friend, although she did not say who that was.

Mette-Marit revealed that she had phoned her husband during her stay at Epstein’s home in Florida in early 2013 to tell him she had seen something that made her feel uneasy, but she did not elaborate. She remained in touch with Epstein until the following year.

“I was manipulated and deceived,” she said, according to a Reuters report of the interview. “He used ​the fact that we had a mutual friend, and that I’m gullible. I like to believe the best about people. But I also chose to end contact with ​him.”

The emails released by the Department of Justice highlight the chatty nature of their friendship. She joked about interior design in a message to Epstein in November 2012: “Is it inappropriate for a mother to suggest two naked women carrying a surfboard for my 15 yr old sons wallpaper?” She made light of Epstein’s “neurotic” Christmas break with filmmaker Woody Allen in January 2014.

More to the point, she seemed to know something about Epstein’s past. The financier had been convicted and sent to prison in June 2008 for soliciting sex from girls as young as 14, generating news headlines, but Mette-Marit befriended him three years later.

“Googled u after last email,” she emailed him in October 2011. “Agree didn’t look too good.” She added a smiley face in text format.

On Friday, she said the 2011 email showed she did not know much about Epstein’s history: “If I had found information that made me realise that he was an abuser and sex offender, I wouldn’t have written ​a smiley face behind it.”

Mette-Marit has a major health challenge: she suffers from pulmonary fibrosis, which makes it hard to breathe, and she needs a lung transplant. Sitting next to her during the interview, Haakon made it clear the old link to Epstein would not prevent his wife becoming queen one day.

“Mette is caring, wise and really strong,” he said. “And that’s why I will always have her on the team when something difficult happens.”

Many Norwegians think otherwise. In the aftermath of the interview, three opinion polls found that a majority were not satisfied with her answers, given they raised even more questions. Did she see evidence that Epstein was blackmailing people? What caused her concern in Florida in 2013? Most of all, what did she learn when she googled him? One poll on Friday, by news site VG, found that 47 per cent thought she should not become queen.

Royal privileges

Høiby, meanwhile, generates deep concerns about royalty and society. He is not part of the line of succession because he was born to Mette-Marit and a previous partner, Morten Borg, before she married Haakon.

He has never had any public duties – as the crown princess reminded the media when he turned 20. But he has grown up with many of the privileges of a royal.

Police arrested Høiby, now 29, when reports emerged of a violent incident at a woman’s flat in Oslo. The first news of that incident was reported in August 2024 by journalist Ulf Andre Andersen at Se og Hør magazine, working with Kokkinn-Thoresen.

Speaking with this masthead, Kokkinn-Thoresen said there had been concerns about the young man for some time.

The four rape charges cover a period from 2018 to the end of 2024 and include incidents at the royal family’s official residence outside Oslo. In one case, Høiby is said to have had sex with a woman while she was asleep. In others, the women are said to have been incapacitated. He has denied the charges. Over seven weeks, his lawyers have disputed evidence from the four women and others who testified.

Kokkinn-Thoresen said he and his colleague have spoken to four other women who have not come forward because they do not want to go through a public trial – for instance, because their boyfriends are not aware of their experiences. He said other women also wonder if they are among those raped while asleep or incapacitated, because some of the evidence comes from Høiby’s mobile phone.

“The police have confirmed that there are more people and they don’t know who they are – they have pictures of girls they haven’t identified,” he said.

“There are a lot of people who think: could this be me?” According to the police, the mobile phone includes photographs and videos taken of women from the waist down.

Høiby told the court he had consensual sex with many women, but he denied having sex with anyone who was incapacitated. He argued the public claims had made it harder for him to get a fair trial. “I’m not Marius any more, I’m a monster,” he said.

‘Hope for better days’

On the street outside the Oslo court, Norwegians were cautious about expressing their opinions of the case in late February, although some spoke to this masthead on condition their family names were not used.

“I feel sorry for the king and queen and Prince Haakon,” said Ada, 80, a retiree. She also felt sorry for the crown princess, but doubted she could become queen. Einar, 50, a software engineer, said he was a republican but believed King Harald had done a good job. “I still think most Norwegians would want to keep the royal family,” he said.

Support for Haakon remained strong. “Our crown prince is a very good person,” said Gro, 72. Simon, 25, a locksmith, said the crown prince had not done anything wrong.

An opinion poll on Friday found that 58 per cent believed Haakon will do a very good job as king, while another 20 per cent said he will do “quite well” as monarch. And yet 47 per cent think Mette-Marit should not be queen.

No constitutional monarchy faces a challenge quite like this. But the Norwegian royal family, chosen by parliament in 1905 and endorsed by a referendum in that year, has seen worse. Its founding figure, King Haakon VII, famously defied Nazi Germany to reign in exile during the Second World War and return in triumph to unify the country after the occupation.

“The royal family have the benefit of time and patience, and they can hope for better days,” said Kjetil Alstadheim, the political editor at Aftenposten, the country’s biggest newspaper. Of course, some want to say good riddance to the monarchy: his 2014 book, The Republic of Norway, analysed this sentiment. Even so, he told this masthead in February that he believed the monarchy would survive.

In a sense, one of the reasons for this is now in Sydney. Ingrid Alexandra, 22, is popular and accomplished. She served as a gunner on an infantry vehicle during military service and is now studying politics and international relations. She stands up for her mother, but she is removed from the turmoil at home.

Alstadheim said the years ahead are likely to be challenging for Haakon because, when he takes the throne, he will be unable to rely heavily on Mette-Marit to carry out public duties. This means Ingrid Alexandra may be needed by her father’s side.

“The family emphasises that she should have the possibility to take an education and to be somewhere else, and to be a student and to do something different to what she will spend the rest of her life on,” he said. “Crown Prince Haakon studied in California, and I think that was an important period for him. So, I think, they want to protect her from too much responsibility at too early an age.

“But, of course, if they have to, they will need to bring her back home.”

This is how constitutional monarchies work. Sooner or later, private life gives way to public duty. For now, the Norwegian royal family awaits the verdict on Høiby.

In his book on the monarchy, Alstadheim reached a conclusion many Australians will understand after years of debate about a republic. Once established, a royal family can draw on deep power in the community to survive political arguments and personal scandals.

“Monarchies are deeply rooted and hard to topple,” he said. “They fail because of war or revolution. Fortunately, we do not have either war or revolution.”

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