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.
How can one man be so infuriatingly involved in so much corruption globally? I just want to live in peace, urgh
The world really is run by a cabal of pedophiles.
Who knew
Mossad wants dirt on everyone
The fact that Mette-Marit was a single mother and the fact that Høiby’s father was a convicted felon created controversy. TV 2 later wrote that “merely by existing, Marius Borg Høiby was seen by many as a scandal for the royal family.”
He sure lived up to their expectations. Well cheer up guys, at least he can use your tax money to hire himself the best lawyer available.
Parasites.
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.
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.
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).
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
I guess ‘No Kings’ is doing something after all
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
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.
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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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.
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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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.The problem is this voting power is held by someone just because he/she is the child of someone, not because they can actually wield it responsibly. This is the whole reason monarchy was abolished.
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
