Norway's Royal Family in Crisis as Future Queen's Son Sent to Prison

In Norway, the royal family is in a state of intense crisis for a number of reasons. The King, Harald V, is 89 years old and suffers from ill health. His eldest daughter left behind her royal duties to marry a quack “shaman.” While the heir, Crown Prince Haakon, seems reasonably uncontroversial, his wife, Mette-Marit, is now disgraced after her years-long closeness to Jeffrey Epstein was fully revealed. Now, things have gotten even darker as the son of Mette-Marit has been found guilty of two counts of rape.

Marius Borg Høiby, who is not technically part of the royal family, was sentenced to four years in prison. Prosecutors had called for Høiby to be given seven years and seven months in prison. Høiby had denied all four counts of rape, but the judges convicted him of raping two women, including one on the Crown Prince’s estate at Skaugum in 2018 and another involving a woman in Oslo in 2024. He was also convicted of abusing an ex-girlfriend and of causing serious bodily harm to another partner. According to the BBC, the case largely rested on testimonies from several women as well as videos that Høiby had filmed. He was not in court for the verdict due to “unspecified health reasons.” The verdict can be appealed.

Since 2017, Høiby has been involved in a number of criminal matters, including drug possession and breaching a restraining order. The Høiby case has been a big deal in Norway and also led to a massive shift in how many people there view the royal family, which had previously had a solid and uncontroversial reputation. Høiby is not a royal because Mette-Marit had him before she married into the family, but he has long been accused of using his royal connection for preferential treatment. Mette‑Marit has been accused in the media of warning her son about his impending arrest and of attempting to influence witnesses. According to one Norwegian publication, the mother of one of the alleged victims reached out to Haakon personally, several years before his arrest, to discuss the abuse she’d received.

In March of this year, Mette-Marit gave a tearful interview where she claimed to have felt “manipulated” by Jeffrey Epstein, with whom she had exchanged hundreds of emails between 2011 and 2014. She also stayed in his Florida home when he was not present. In 2011, three years after Epstein had been jailed for soliciting underage sex, she wrote: “Googled u after last email. Agree didn’t look too good.” She has largely avoided the spotlight in recent months, which the palace has said is due to her health. She suffers from the lung disease pulmonary fibrosis, and was recently put onto the list to acquire a lung transplant.

What is “abolish the monarchy” in Norwegian?