Content Warning: This article touches on issues of sexual assault, which may be triggering for some readers. Help is available.
Marius Borg Høiby, the son of Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway, has been found guilty of two counts of rape at Oslo District Court today. The 29-year-old was sentenced to four years in prison.
The son of the Crown Princess denied all four counts of rape. The three judges acquitted him of two counts. One of the rapes happened at Crown Prince Haakon’s estate at Skaugum in 2018. The second after a party in Oslo in 2024, following consensual sex. According to a report from the BBC, Marius filmed the incident while the victim was asleep or incapacitated and therefore unable to give consent. Video evidence was shown at the trial.
Furthermore, he was additionally convicted of abusing his ex-partner, Nora Haukland, a popular influencer in Norway. She is the only woman named in the case. He was also convicted of other offences, including abuse and reckless behaviour to an unnamed woman in whose flat he was arrested in August 2024.
In addition to his prison stay, Marius must also pay 640,000 kroner to the victims, which converts to about $140,485.88 AUD.
Although he is the son of the Crown Princess, because he was born before her marriage to Crown Prince Haakon, Marius is not an official member of the Norwegian Royal Family. He has lived in royal residences with his stepfather and step-siblings since the age of four.
“I have been harassed and tormented by the media since I was three years old,” he claimed during the trial, as reported by William Langley in the July 2026 issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly. “I have lived a life that very few people here can relate to. I am known for being my mother’s son. Nothing else. I have had an extreme need for validation. And that manifested itself in a lot of sex, a lot of drugs, and a lot of alcohol. Now I’m not Marius anymore. I’m a monster.”
Following his arrest and subsequent trial, the palace put out a press release which stated that Marius “is not a member of the Royal House of Norway, and his actions are therefore his own”.
The Norwegian royals have been through quite a lot of public relations crises in recent months. which The Weekly delves into in the latest issue.
Beyond Marius and his crimes and convictions, his mother, Crown Princess Mette-Marit, was revealed to have a close relationship with convicted sex offender, American businessman, Jeffrey Epstein. In dozens of emails sent from her official ‘Kronprinsessen’ account at the palace, she calls him “my sweetheart”, “very charming” and “soft-hearted”.
“I also apologise for the situation that I have put the royal family in, especially the King and Queen,” Mette-Marit said in a statement released by the royal palace after the news came out. She apologised for her “poor judgment.”
She is also suffering from pulmonary fibrosis, and the Palace confirmed she is on a lung transplant waiting list. Marius’s lawyers had requested compassionate release from prison for him so that he could visit his mother; however, the courts denied the request. His step-sister, Princess Ingrid, who is attending university here in Sydney, rushed home in recent weeks to, as the palace says, be with her mother. She was spotted with her younger brother, Prince Sverre Magnus, at a Norwegian qualifying match for the FIFA Women’s World Cup.
Her father, Crown Prince Haakon, is currently acting as regent while his father, King Harald V and Queen Sonja are in Sweden to celebrate the golden wedding anniversary of King Carl Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden.
The latest news will further hurt the Norwegian Royals. As William Langley writes, “As other royal families have found, to their cost, one piece of bad publicity tends to attract others.”
The Norwegian Royal Family has yet to send a press release. We will update when they do.
If you or someone you know has been affected by any of the issues raised in this article, help is always available. Call 1800 RESPECT on 1800 737 732 or visit their website.
Read “A House of Cards: Royals under fire” in the July 2026 issue of The Australian Women’s Weekly, on sale now.
