this post was submitted on 01 Feb 2026
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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.

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[–] rabber@lemmy.ca 34 points 2 days ago (2 children)
[–] cuboc@lemmy.world 7 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Not a Norwegian, but I would hope so.

[–] OddMinus1@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 day ago

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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[–] gaymer@aussie.zone -3 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Epstein was a billionaire and we live in a capitalistic economy. Beinf said that, There's no doubt poor people will be licking is boot but that doesn't mean he's fucking anyone and everyone. He had many 9-5s working for him, does that mean he was raping all of them? No!! What i am trying to say is there will be many people who must have been in touch with him for money and his influence for personal gains that doesn't mean all are criminals.

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[–] neidu3@sh.itjust.works 11 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (13 children)

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.

[–] SkyeStarfall@lemmy.blahaj.zone 7 points 2 days ago (4 children)

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

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