{"id":486665,"date":"2026-03-20T23:39:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-20T23:39:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/486665\/"},"modified":"2026-03-20T23:39:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-20T23:39:10","slug":"norways-crown-princess-says-she-was-deceived-by-jeffrey-epstein-jeffrey-epstein","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/486665\/","title":{"rendered":"Norway\u2019s crown princess says she was \u2018deceived\u2019 by Jeffrey Epstein | Jeffrey Epstein"},"content":{"rendered":"

Norway\u2019s crown princess, Mette-Marit, has said she was \u201cmanipulated and deceived\u201d by Jeffrey Epstein<\/a> as she spoke publicly for the first time about her years-long relationship with the late sex offender.<\/p>\n

She also claimed that she \u201cdid not know he was a sex offender or an abuser\u201d \u2013 despite telling him in an email in 2011, three years after he had been sentenced to 18 months in prison and pleaded guilty to soliciting sex from girls as young as 14, that she had recently Googled him.<\/p>\n

The Epstein files, released in January by the US justice department, have rocked Norway<\/a> after multiple figures from the highest echelons of society \u2013 including Mette-Marit and a former prime minister \u2013 were named in them.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, the Norwegian parliament voted unanimously to appoint an independent investigative commission<\/a> to look into connections between the country\u2019s foreign office and Epstein.<\/p>\n

Mette-Marit appears to be mentioned nearly 1,000 times in the files in personal email exchanges between 2011 and 2014. In one exchange, Mette-Marit asked whether it was \u201cinappropriate for a mother to suggest two naked women carrying a surfboard for my 15-year-old son\u2019s wallpaper?\u201d<\/p>\n

The royal palace has previously released a statement in which Mette-Marit said she had shown \u201cpoor judgment\u201d and expressed \u201cdeep regret at having had any contact with Epstein\u201d but otherwise she has remained largely silent.<\/p>\n

After seven weeks of mounting pressure \u2013 including from the prime minister, Jonas Gahr St\u00f8re \u2013 she sat down for a 20-minute interview with the Norwegian broadcaster NRK<\/a>, broadcast on Friday, alongside her husband, the crown prince Haakon, at their home near Oslo, the royal residence Skaugum.<\/p>\n

The interview was filmed on Thursday, the final day of the trial of Mette-Marit\u2019s son Marius Borg H\u00f8iby \u2013 who could face more than seven years in prison<\/a> if he is found guilty of 39 offences, including four rapes, which he denies. The crown princess has pulmonary fibrosis, for which she is likely to need a lung transplant.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am the mother of a young man who has been in a very demanding situation,\u201d she told NRK. \u201cIn addition, I have health that requires a lot of rest. And it has developed even more.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is incredibly important for me to take responsibility for not checking [Epstein\u2019s] background more carefully. And to take responsibility for being so manipulated and deceived as I was,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She said she feels \u201cgreat anger\u201d that Epstein\u2019s victims have not received justice, adding: \u201cAt the same time, it\u2019s important for me to say if I\u2019ve done something that has contributed to giving him legitimacy in some way.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said Epstein was \u201ca close friend of a good friend of mine\u201d and that she was introduced to him through several mutual acquaintances in 2011 when she was a special envoy for the UN Aids Programme.<\/p>\n

They had a \u201cfriendly relationship\u201d she said, adding that he was \u201ca friend of a friend of mine, first and foremost\u201d. She denied any suggestion of intimacy between them.<\/p>\n

Among the most pored over emails was one from October 2011 in which Mette-Marit wrote: \u201cGoogled you after the previous email. Agreed, it didn\u2019t look good :).\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked what she had meant by this, she said she did not know.<\/p>\n

\u201cI spent a lot of time trying to figure that out myself. I wish I had the rest of that email correspondence,\u201d she said, adding: \u201cBut if I had found information that made me realise that he was an abuser and sex offender, I wouldn\u2019t have written a smiley face.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked whether she might have found a Wikipedia article from the time stating that he was a convicted rapist, she said: \u201cIt\u2019s hard for me to say, because I can\u2019t remember. But I didn\u2019t know he was a sex offender or an abuser, if that\u2019s what you\u2019re asking.\u201d<\/p>\n

The files also revealed that Mette-Marit had stayed in Epstein\u2019s Palm Beach home in Florida for several days in January 2013. In her explanation, she said she went there because \u201ca mutual friend of ours had borrowed the house\u201d but that it is \u201cone of the things I have spent the most time processing after the serious abuses became known in 2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Visibly emotional, she said: \u201cThe fact that I have been there and, not least, have a sense of guilt for the victims. I have spent a lot of time processing this. So it is very difficult for me personally.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Norway\u2019s crown princess, Mette-Marit, has said she was \u201cmanipulated and deceived\u201d by Jeffrey Epstein as she spoke publicly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":486666,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-486665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486665\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/486666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}