Norway’s Crown Princess has been forced to apologise after newly unsealed files revealed her unexpected friendship with the late paedophile financier Jeffrey Epstein.
Mette-Marit, 52, who married Crown Prince Haakon in 2001, exchanged dozens of emails with Epstein despite knowing he had been jailed for procuring an underage girl for prostitution.
Her name appeared at least 1,000 times in the millions of new Epstein documents released by the US Department of Justice on Friday, local media reported.
The disclosures come at an acutely uncomfortable time for the Norwegian monarchy with Mette Marit’s son, Marius Borg Hoiby, due to appear in court on Tuesday charged with raping four women and 34 other offences.
Documents show the Crown Princess’s effusive email exchanges with Epstein date from between 2011 and 2014.
She was also previously known to have met the paedophile on at least three occasions in Oslo, New York and the Caribbean between 2011 and 2013.
In one email, Mette-Marit asked Epstein if it was ‘inappropriate for a mother to suggest two naked women carrying a surfboard for my 15 yr old son’s wallpaper’.
Mette-Marit, 52, who married Crown Prince Haakon in 2001, exchanged dozens of emails with Epstein despite knowing he had been jailed for procuring an underage girl for prostitution
Image shows one of Mette-Marit’s emails that featured in the Epstein files
Marius Borg Hoiby and Mette-Marit are pictured together in 2022
In another, she told him he was ‘very charming’.
When Epstein told her he was in Paris ‘on (a) wife hunt’ in 2012, she replied saying the French capital is ‘good for adultery’ and ‘Scandis (are) better wife material’.
Epstein had at that point already pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting a minor for prostitution.
The files also show she stayed at his house in Florida for four days in 2013.
On Saturday, Mette-Marit addressed her ’embarrassing’ friendship with the disgraced financier, who died by suicide in jail in 2019 as he awaited trial for sex crimes against minors.
‘I showed poor judgment and I deeply regret having had any contact with Epstein. It is simply embarrassing,’ she said in a statement sent by the royal palace.
The 52-year-old said she was responsible ‘for not having checked Epstein’s background more closely and not understanding quickly enough what kind of person he was’.
Yet in 2011, Mette-Marit wrote to Epstein that she had ‘googled’ him, adding ‘it didn’t look too good’ and ending the sentence with a smiling emoji.
She did not specify exactly what she was referring to.
Epstein pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting a minor for prostitution and was jailed
Crown Princess Mette-Marit is seen with her husband Crown Prince Haakon of Norway
According to the palace, Mette-Marit had ceased contact with Epstein in 2014 because she felt he was ‘trying to use his relationship with the crown princess as leverage with other people’.
‘It almost gives the impression that they were close friends,’ historian and royal expert Ole-Jorgen Schulsrud-Hansen said.
He noted however the broader context of the messages was unknown.
‘A Crown Princess is never a private person,’ he said.
‘This shows in any case a lack of judgment and that all the ‘safety catches’ around her also failed.’
On Sunday, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Store said he ‘agreed’ that Mette-Marit had made an error in judgment.
The timing of the public release of the emails she sent in the Epstein files could not be worse for Mette-Marit.
On Tuesday, her 29-year-old son Marius Borg Hoiby, born from a relationship before her marriage to Crown Prince Haakon, goes on trial at Oslo’s district court.
He is accused of allegedly committing 38 crimes, including the rape of four women as well as assault and drug offences.
He could face up to 16 years in jail if found guilty. Hoiby denies the most serious charges.
The royal couple will not attend the seven-week trial, and Crown Prince Haakon told reporters that Mette-Marit would be away on a private trip during that period.
