Royal was ‘manipulated’ by paedophile Jeffrey Epstein as damning emails emerge
A new royal scandal linked to Jeffrey Epstein is sparking chaos. After the Epstein Files were released in February, more than 1,000 mentions of Norway’s Crown Princess Mette-Marit have emerged.
Critics claim that some of the most damaging revelations are emails indicating the future queen searched on Google for the late sex trafficker after his 2008 conviction. In what has been dubbed the “Google” Email (Oct 2011), she reportedly wrote: “Googled u after last email.
“Agree didn’t look too good :).” Norwegian media has reported that, in January 2013, Mette-Marit stayed at Epstein’s Palm Beach mansion for four days.
One of the exchanges shows her asking Epstein if it was “inappropriate” for a mother to suggest “two naked women carrying a surfboard” as wallpaper for her then 15-year-old son, Marius Borg Høiby.
Speaking about the relationship and its aftermath, she said: “I feel so manipulated… you don’t realise it from the start.” Norwegian state media NRK royal correspondent Kristi Marie Skrede, who has covered the Crown Princess for more than 20 years, has offered a rare behind-the-scenes perspective.
“Mette-Marit was in her 20s when she met [Norwegian Crown] Prince Haakon,” Skrede exclusively told the Daily Star. “At the time, she was a single-mum to a little boy.
“She didn’t have any education and worked as a waitress.” Skrede said the future Crown Princess “came from a divorced family” and that “her childhood was a bit difficult because her dad was alcoholic”. The expert added that, in her teens and early adulthood, the royal “she became a rebel”.
Before marrying Crown Prince Haakon Mette-Marit was a prominent figure in the 1990s rave scene. He ex-partner Morten Borg, was a convicted drug offender.
When Mette-Marit entered royal life, she attempted to confront her tumultuous life head-on, holding a press conference “to lay it all bare”. Skrede recalled: “I saw a woman who had moved on from that normal background and it was a Cinderella story.”
The expert added: “She really was a star at that time. And it is in that environment that she met Jeffrey Epstein.”
She added that Mette-Marit met Epstein through celebrity charity circles. The journalist claimed that, with hindsight, she believes the Crown Princess came to see herself as a target.
And she reckons she may have been manipulated – “groomed” – into friendship. She said: “And we understand now, and she understood later that he groomed her. He conducted himself with her in a way to get to use her in ways he wanted.”
Skrede said: “She got to know him in 2011, and that was three years after he had been jailed for the first time. So he was already a sentenced sex offender when she met him.
“And he had already pleaded guilty. […] But the Crown Princess says in interviews now that she didn’t know who he was when they met.”
She continued: “What has come out in the Epstein files is that the Crown Princess wrote to Epstein ‘I googled you, I agree, it didn’t look good’. And when asked what it was that she googled, what was it that didn’t look good, she says, ‘I don’t remember’, ‘I don’t know’, and that she searched for her emails but she can’t find it, because that email account is deleted.”
Mette-Marit “says she regrets that relationship and that it took too long to realise who he really was”, according to Skrede.
The Royal House has shared its official response to the Epstein case here.
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