Norway’s crown princess has become embroiled in another scandal after newly unsealed files appeared to show her years of extensive contact with the late child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
The latest tranche of Epstein files, released on Friday by the US justice department, appear to include nearly 1,000 mentions of the crown princess, Mette-Marit.
The files include scores of emails traded between the two, suggesting they were in contact from 2011 to 2014, the Norwegian daily VG reported. Mette-Marit married the future king of Norway in 2001.
The revelations come at a sensitive time for the royal family. The trial of Mette-Marit’s son, Marius Borg Høiby for rape is due to begin on Tuesday. He was born from a relationship before she married Crown Prince Haakon
Høiby is facing 38 charges, including the alleged rape of four women as well as alleged assault and drug offences. If convicted he could face up to 16 years in prison. Høiby has denied the most serious charges, including those of sexual abuse.
Mette-Marit and a scandal. I’ve heard that before.
The movement to get rid of the parasitic monarchy in Norway got a lot of traction this week, so that is nice.
There is an actual hearing in Parliament this tuesday about abolishing the monarchy. Not caused by this but happily strengthened.
I’ve traditionally been a supporter of keeping the monarchy for its diplomatic functions and (mostly) unifying force among people, but this does feel like a sea-change. Maybe opinions in Norway are more forgiving, I don’t know–I moved away many years ago. In my opinion, it’s probably time to re-evaluate whether we (Norway) want to keep this going. It was decided decades ago to keep it at least until the current Crown Prince had his turn, but now that’s looking like a bad idea. They need to do something, and hopefully they can still wind it down with some dignity. Maybe it’s possible to make a nice, clean break when King Harald passes on. Either way, it should be up to the People.
I’m not 100% convinced having a President will be better, seeing as some Presidents like to act as if they’re kings. But with all the scandals, I think if anyone still believes monarchs are immune to political influence, they should wake up now.
PS: I was wondering if you have some more information about the hearing (e.g. news article). I can’t find it in the Norwegian media. (I read/speak Norwegian).
Yeah, power corrupts. But royalty is excempt from scrutiny way too much. The king keeps pardoning finance crime buddies and it’s not even mentioned in the media like other corruption would be.
Anyway, https://stortinget.no/ has info on the hearings :)
Thank you, I found it here. I’m a little bit surprised it’s not in the media more.
Pretty sure because it’s a routine tradition, and is always expected to end in the favor of keeping the monarchy. So it’s not really too interesting unless you are a politician
I guess ‘No Kings’ is doing something after all
Does the Norwegian monarchy also generate a significant amount of revenue for the government like the British one does?
I honestly don’t keep up with them much, so I can’t say what the current status is. I didn’t even realize until today that Mette-Marit had been connected with Epstein already back in 2019.
It’s not just about money, though. When I still lived there ('90s), the common sentiment seemed to be that though they have no political power (even less so than the British), they were good, wholesome ambassadors for Norway and served as a sort of cultural focal point that “everyone” shared pride in. (Obviously not a 100% true, but if you’re Norwegian you know what I mean.)
Importantly, one point of pride was that they weren’t as embroiled in scandals as other royals. They were “of the people”, with one example often cited that King Olav during the oil crisis took his skis on the bus instead of driving. That kind of thing.
The current line of Norwegian royals is even pretty new, so to speak. King Haakon VII was chosen by committee in 1905 after the dissolution of the union. At the time, they passed on becoming a republic. So, it felt more like they had been selected by us rather than they just inherited everything.
But: the whole Epstein business, greed, political influence and all that flies directly in the face of all that pride. That’s why I think that case is probably lost now. The trust is gone, the monarchy is tarnished. It’s become a liability and expense rather than a point of pride.
That actually makes a lot of sense. Coming from a country heavily influenced by Thomas Paine especially on the topic of nobility it’s always been weird to me when such egalitarian countries as most of Scandinavia and the Netherlands maintain monarchies.
The buildings and overboard “state folklore” are what generate revenue, not the Royals - the probability of ever seeing a Royal in person, either as a tourist or a local, is basically zero.
Meanwhile the Royals are a cornerstone of a massive system of patronage and class segregation, not to mention being one of the wealthiest families in Britain. Oh, and the king also has the power to block laws, though he seldom uses it and apparently will instead in the background use the threat of it and of shaming governments (look up the “black spider memos”, which date back to his time as prince).
They’re pretty much the most anti-Democratic Royals in Europe by a long margin, IMHO.
You can have a President without having a Presidential system - like, for example, Germany - were that post is mainly being a figurehead/top-diplomat with mainly the power of shaming parliament when they go overboard with some laws, both not actually able to block it, possible with some limited power to dissolve parliament and call new elections.
Basically it’s the same thing as a modern day monarch in a Democratic nation, except that people actually get to chose who gets the post, if they turn out to be bad at it they get replaced after 4 years rather than being there for life and they don’t actually own a massive chunk of wealth for historical reasons (like, for example, the British Royal Family).
I’ve lived under Presidential systems (Portugal) and Constitutional Monarchies (The Netherlands, Britain) and vastly prefer the former: the latter is especially fucked up in Britain were the Royals actually have real power (to block laws) - if seldom used - and are the cornerstone of a well entrenched system of patronage and class segregation which is far beyond anything I’ve seen elsewhere in Europe, though granted in The Netherlands The Royals were a lot closer to normal people - to the point that before becoming King the current ruler used to work as a pilot for KLM - than in Britain.
Portugal doesn’t have a Presidential system, it’s a Semi-Presidential one.
You’re correct, similarly to Germany it has a President with limited powers which are far less than Parliament or the Govern, not a Presidential System (like the US or France) were the President actually has executive power.
The Portuguese President has more power than the German one, though.
voted today https://www.nrk.no/nyheter/kongefamilien-1.11661059 141 voted to keep current constitutional monarchy, 26 for a republic.
Also 76% of people asked in a poll trust the crown princess less after the recent Epstein information.
In ages 19–29 and 30–39 its 81 %
Also 44 % this she is unfit to rule
You can bet that once the inevitable population-wide vote happens on whether to keep the monarchy, I will vote no. I already didn’t like having a monarchy from before, now doubly so.
A: she’s married in. Not actual you know. Heritage
Are you mansplaining my own fucking country of 45 years to me?
I’m Norwegian…
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I was told that royal families are all ceremonial and that they don’t have any real power, but we keep finding them embroiled with people who have real power.
Really makes you think.
In theory, yes. In our country, our royal family has an undisclosed amount of money, get an undisclosed amount of money from the taxpayer and has a number of other sources of income as well. One of the nephews of the king has a huge real estate business built upon his family money.
Fucking parasites.
Money==power. Monarchs roll in money.
Any social influencers of this level obviously have indirect power and anyone who claims otherwise is delusional.
That being said, I do think it’s possible that ceremonial representation can be beneficial. I’d love states start electing purely ceremonial roles more as it’s a really powerful social tool for uniting people and can be done right.
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Sounds like the apple didn’t fall far from the tree.
A lifetime of living without consequence where your every whim is met creates dangerously broken people
What happened here is actually worse somehow. Mette marit was a “commoner” known on her circles as a fun party/rave girl. The usual drugs included. She had a son (Marius) with someone from that walk of life. He had the chance to turn 8 or 9 i think before having the title of “royalty” thrust uppon him at the same time his single mother got swept away on all sorts of royal adventures.
Not hard at all to see how that can fuck you up royally.
Edit: just remembered she had a sextape from the good old days, and since it was only of interest to us Norwegians and the internett wasn’t as big as it is now they’ve managed to scrub it. Or that might just have been rumors, but I’m like 80% sure i saw it at one of the early 2000’s LAN parties.
He was first sentenced in 2008…
Looks bad until you realise how afraid of confrontations Norwegians are
Parasites.
The dominos start to fall
Not a Norwegian, but I would hope so.
As a Norwegian, I would be perfectly fine with seeing the monarchy abolished whenever the passing of our current monarcs occur.
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How can one man be so infuriatingly involved in so much corruption globally? I just want to live in peace, urgh
Mossad wants dirt on everyone
But not russians?
The only russians to pop up in the files are informants or business partners, nothing else.
There is, however, quite a bit of dirt on various Israelites.
They’ve released less than 1% of the files. Still plenty of things we have yet to see.
The world really is run by a cabal of pedophiles.
Who knew
I’ve heard that this is so bad that it might be the end of the royal family in Norway.
Damn, I wish! I’m against all kinds of kings.
Why?
They have decorational value, nothing else.
Imagine you have some decorational vases on your mantle. They cost you an extraordinary amount of money each year, but you like them and they’re family heirlooms. But then one vase starts spewing the most insane conspiracy theories that make everyone uncomfortable, one shills dangerous health advice for money (despite you paying its salary), one is facing multiple accusations of sexual assault, and has been indicted for rape, and one it turns out is heavily in the Epstein files. Would you reconsider if those vases were worth paying a ton of money every year that could be used to better yourself or others?
I mean, yeah, these specific vases have to go, but I wouldn’t reconsider the idea of having vases based off of that.
No? You’re saying you wouldn’t even consider spending the exorbitant amount of money it cost to maintain those purely decorational vases on something else? Like saving for your retirement or your kid’s retirement, setting up community gardens, beefing up your home security, funding medical research, etc?
No? You’re saying you wouldn’t even consider spending the exorbitant amount of money it cost to maintain those purely decorational vases on something else?
Well, I like vases. People like vases. Some vases being shitty doesn’t make ALL vases shitty.
And let’s not pretend like the “royal whatnot” upkeep is a major amount of money on a country’s scale. Sure, looking at it itself it seems like a lot, but removing, for example, the UK royal family in its entirety wouldn’t even be noticeable in the overall budget. They cost UK taxpayers around £510 million, whereas the 2025 budget spending was £1,244.9 billion. You’d lower it to £1,244.4 billion. That’s peanuts.
The issue - on that scale - isn’t the funding itself, it’s that the overall spending of taxpayer money is extremely inefficient.
Thank you for partaking in this conversation in good faith. This is a good conversation.
That being said, I absolutely hate that attitude. When you look at it as a percentage of annual spending you are right. When you look at it per capita you’re right, for the UK it’s only £7 per person if my math is right.
That perspective is an extremely privileged one. How many lives could be saved every year with that money? How much good could be done?
We agree that the overall spending and allocation of taxpayer money is inefficient. The difference that I see in this conversation is that you’re throwing up your hands and saying “the problem is too big, welp better not do anything about it”, while I’m saying “This is a great step in the right direction that can help people now”.
Can you give me some reasons to keep the royal family, rather than reasons not to get rid of it?
That perspective is an extremely privileged one. How many lives could be saved every year with that money? How much good could be done?
OK, let’s assume we do it your way - eliminate the entirety of the Royal Family funding, because they’re “useless”.
Let’s say the NHS is able to save 34 more lives per year (NHS 2025 budget is £204.7 billion, UK’s population is 69 million, the extra £510 million equates to just about enough money for 34 extra people - maths super simplified, ofc, but I think it’s good enough to show the scales we’re talking about).
Now - there’s a bunch of jobs some of the Royals do (representative, mostly) that now need to be done by others on a regular employment contract, but let’s ignore all that.
We get 34 extra lives saved after eliminating what is essentially a large piece of history and culture, large part of which is available to the public.
So… why stop there? Why not eliminate all museums? Bah, kill the entire DCMS - their budget was a whopping £2.29 billion for the 2025/26 financial year! That’s around 140 extra saved lives if that budget was pushed to NHS!
You see what I’m getting at?
Can you give me some reasons to keep the royal family, rather than reasons not to get rid of it?
Royal families in democratic monarchies often serve similar purposes as the president in countries like Germany or Poland. It’s the Chancellor/Prime Minister who has any actual power, but there’s still a mostly representative President. The president, other than being an extension of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, also often has the power of veto (in the case of Poland: they can send a proposed to be analysed by the Constitutional Tribunal to verify legality), as part of the three-way checks and balances, and has the right of legislative initiative.
To my knowledge, all of this is also true about the UK King. Sure, they’re not electable, but clearly the people of UK don’t have a problem with that (approval rates in the 60s with only around 30% being strongly against).
The idea to “save lives” by eliminating a large chunk of culture and history, as well introducing the need to heavily reform how governance in the UK works (which usually means immense costs to implement) would be easier (and cheaper) to achieve by just reforming the NHS.
It’s the same case as in the US - it’s not the lack of money that’s the problem here. People always complain that US prefers financing their war industry than healthcare, but that’s just completely not true - their military gets around 4% of the federal budget while their healthcare gets 16%. Throwing more money at that bonfire won’t help save people - you need to start by putting the fire out and then cleaning up!
Thank you for partaking in this conversation in good faith. This is a good conversation.
Cheers!
Norwegian here, and I don’t think it’s gonna change a whole lot. Well, not for her, at least.
Personally I don’t care enough about them, and I don’t get the impression anyone under 60 care that much either, neither positive or negative. Her husband is genuinely a nice person, so is her father in law (yes, I’ve met them both). Her son is a scumbag, though. (And he almost ran into me on a bicycle when he was 5 or so!)
So if anyone wants to litigate against her, I’m not gonna stand in the way, but for now this looks mostly like a case of “Should’ve known better”, something several government officials have publicly stated.
Just to clarify my stance on monarchy: Conflicted. In theory it does make sense to have someone who can veto everything on behalf of the state if the government goes weapons grade guano. However, the apolitical nature of a monarch pretty much stand in the way of this. And on the other hand, I’m not a big fan of inherited power.
But all in all, I don’t really care that much. Larger portions of my taxes go to stupider things.While I agree that having an independent body from the main political organ makes sense, I feel like a monarchy isn’t a great symbol to have in the first place
And what’s going to stop future scandals from happening? Or consequences for them? If a future king does something bad, we can’t exactly fire them and replace them with someone else, as that’s not how a monarchy works. We only got one tool, and it’s to abolish the monarchy. It doesn’t feel like great checks and balances
Generally I am against inherent power. And a monarchy is the peak of that, as you simply are in a position of power by having a lucky birth. It is true that lucky births happen constantly and are everywhere, especially if you get born in norway, but it feels wrong to actively support it.
It just doesn’t really feel like a system that has a place today. Though I do also realize that there’s problems with having a president or the like as well. But generally I support more democracy, not less.
And also as a final note like, if this went hidden for so long until the files got released, I wonder what other stuff got hidden as well? I mean, we got pretty much directly lied to here back in 2019
I’m just uncomfortable with systems that enforce a hierarchy. I think we could do with less of that
They can definitely replace the monarch. Remember it’s a constitutional monarchy where the monarch has only ceremonial power. The throne has been given to the current royal family by the people. The people can take the crown away if they want to. Parliament just needs to amend the constitution. Also the monarch can be encouraged to step down if they are embroiled in a scandal.
Also monarchs are just humans their heads can be chopped off like any of us. They should never forget what happened to their cousin during the French Revolution.
Who would replace the monarch though?
At that point it’s literally just an appointed minister by another name. And I’d rather have the position taken by someone who doesn’t live in a literal castle
And yes, I know it’s a constitutional monarchy, I live here :)
Yeah at that point it will just turn into a republic. But nothing is stopping Norwegians to go into that direction except tRAdiShyUn and decades of brainwashing.
But that’s literally what I’m arguing for though…?
Norway’s Crown what? Are they from the past or something?
A lot of Europe has monarchs. Yes, the french and American mind struggles to comprehend this, but they just don’t ger rid of them
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Possibly, but that excuse doesn’t fly for contacts following his first conviction in 2008:
[…] was convicted in 2008 by a Florida state court of procuring a child for prostitution and of soliciting a prostitute.
That was well before the above mentioned email contacts.
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With your justification, nobody should be working for HSBC, Meta, Google, Apple etc. […]
You are so close.
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