“I wish I had never met him,” she told broadcaster NRK. Mette-Marit and Epstein are said to have been in contact for years and exchanged many private things – even after the American was convicted for the first time. “I didn’t know he was a sex criminal,” she told NRK. She allowed herself to be “manipulated and deceived” by Epstein.

So far, Mette-Marit had only commented in writing about her close contact with Epstein, which came to light through publications in the case. The name of the wife of Norway’s Crown Prince Haakon (52) appears hundreds of times in the case files. This caused great criticism in Norway. Her compatriots also resented Mette-Marit for not commenting on this in detail earlier.

That’s why Mette-Marit didn’t talk about Epstein earlier

The court justified this with the Crown Princess’s health: Mette-Marit suffers from chronic lung disease. The rape trial against her eldest son Marius Borg Høiby (29) is also likely to have weighed on the Crown Princess. This ended on Thursday.

“I am the mother of a young man who found himself in a very difficult situation,” Mette-Marit told NRK. “In addition, my health is such that I need a lot of rest. And this condition has worsened somewhat.”