For years, Mette-Marit of Norway has remained silent about her friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, despite his name appearing hundreds of times in the case files. Now, the heiress apparent of Norway has spoken for the first time about this controversial link that has rocked her popularity among her fellow citizens. She has done so in a historic twenty-minute television interview with the public channel NRK. At her side, supporting her in her darkest moment, is Prince Haakon.
On the verge of tears and with a tremulous voice, Mette-Marit broke her silence about her friendship with the sexual offender Jeffrey Epstein. “I wish I had never known him.”, she stated to the cameras. The princess had already apologized previously in a statement issued by the royal palace, in which she admitted having shown “a lack of judgment.” At that time she explained that she needed time before providing further details.
As the scandals surrounding the Norwegian royal family multiplied, Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre stated at the time that he agreed the royal had acted with poor judgment. It was then considered an unusually public critique of a member of the royal family. Now that the trial of her son Marius Borg has concluded, with prosecutors seeking seven years in prison, Mette-Marit has decided that it is finally time to face the public. Among her apologies for everything that happened, she notes that she cut off contact with Epstein “because I realized he was a bad man.”
Mette-Marit Explains the Epstein Case
“I was deceived and manipulated. And when you are manipulated, you don’t realize it at first,” said Princess Mette-Marit, who did not want to reveal who introduced her to Epstein. “Information arrives to you at different times. I think now I realize to what extent I was manipulated. It is clear that it takes time to process it, but there were a series of events that made me think something wasn’t right.” She also said she felt “a lot of anger” that the victims had not received justice.
“I did not know he was a sexual offender,” added Mette-Marit to NRK about the nature of her relationship with the late financier. The princess kept in touch with Epstein between 2011 and 2014 and stayed at his Palm Beach home for four days on a private trip in 2013, according to the documents. “He exploited the fact that we had a mutual friend and that I am naïve. I like to think the best of people. But I also decided to cut off contact with him,” added the royal, who insisted that she only had contact with adults and never saw anything illegal.
Prince Haakon and Mette-Marit during the interview.
The Epstein documents appear to contradict a statement Mette-Marit made in 2019, in which she apologized for not having investigated her past. And she stated that she would never have related to him had she known the gravity of the crimes he committed. In an October 2011 email published three years after Epstein pled guilty, Mette-Marit wrote to him that she had searched for him on Google and that she agreed that it “didn’t look too good,” followed by a smiling emoticon.
When in the interview she was asked about that email, Mette-Marit replied that she did not remember why she had written it. Sitting beside her, Prince Haakon said that he always supported his wife in a difficult moment and that the marriage is for both “the good days and the bad.” He described his wife as “loving, wise and really strong. And that is why I will always have her on my team when something difficult happens.” And regarding her relationship with Epstein, he stated that it was “not a secret between us.”
Why Mette-Marit Hadn’t Previously Spoken About Epstein
The Norwegian royal family had justified the delay in offering explanations due to the princess’s fragile health. Mette-Marit has suffered from a chronic lung disease for years and is awaiting a lung transplant. It is likely that the high-profile trial against her eldest son, Marius Borg, has also taken a toll on the princess. The wife of Prince Haakon also lamented having put her in-laws, the kings of Norway, in a difficult position.
“I am the mother of a young man who is in a very difficult situation”, Mette-Marit told NRK in her only remarks about Marius Borg. “Furthermore, my health is so delicate that I need a lot of rest. And this situation has worsened a little,” the princess justified. While Haakon and the rest of the royal family have kept a very tight schedule, which has included a trip to the Winter Olympics in Italy, the heir has gone weeks without appearing in public.
