Room 250 at Oslo’s District Court may only be a ten-minute walk from the understated elegance of Norway’s Royal Palace.
But with its stark grey walls, drab furnishing and straight-backed chairs, it must have felt like another world to Marius Borg Hoiby, son of Crown Princess Mette-Marit .
Not that Marius, 29, whose step-father is next in line to the Norwegian throne, was there in person on Monday.
Instead he appeared via video link as he was found guilty of two charges of rape, six of sexual molestation and six of ‘reckless behaviour’, among a total of 34 charges, and sentenced to four years in prison.
His crimes were as audacious as they were grim. One of the rapes took place at an after party in the basement of his parents’ country residence in 2018, the second at a party in Oslo in 2024.
Marius was caught after footage was found on his phone and laptop of him assaulting his victims, who were unconscious.
His conviction followed a six-week trial that has shocked and unsettled Norwegians already reeling from a series of scandals that makes our own monarchy seem harmonious and almost well-behaved in comparison.
For Marius’s mother Mette-Marit, 52 – who is the equivalent in role to our Princess of Wales and married into the royal family in 2001 when Marius was four – was recently revealed to have continued what appeared to be a close friendship with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein long after he pleaded guilty to soliciting an underage girl in 2008.
The royal wedding of Crown Prince Haakon and Mette-Marit Tjessem Hoiby at the Royal Place in Oslo, Norway (2001)
Her name appears at least 1,000 times in the Epstein files – in emails sent between 2011 and 2014, including her calling Epstein ‘such a sweetheart’, apparently making plans to meet him in person and signing off with an affectionate ‘Mm’ or ‘Mette m’.
And as she battles to save her beleaguered reputation, her health is failing.
Having been diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis in 2018, a progressive lung disease that causes difficulty breathing, she was fitted with an oxygen tube to her nose earlier this year and underwent a successful lung transplant just this Wednesday after two weeks on the waiting list.
Without one, it has been suggested she may not have had more than a year to live.
Then there is the former Princess Martha Louise, 54, the eldest daughter of current King Harald V, 89, a second cousin (once removed) of King Charles.
After falling in love with Durek Verrett, a self-styled spiritual healer-slash-conspiracy theorist, depending on who you ask, Martha Louise relinquished her royal duties in a move coined ‘Norway’s Megxit’.
But the pair still stand accused of profiteering from their royal status while complaining about the unwanted attention.
A documentary called Rebel Royals: An Unlikely Love Story, charted the run up to their 2024 wedding, for which they sold their photos to Hello! magazine and the film rights to Netflix.
And this autumn the couple will star in a reality TV series, Alternative Norway, documenting their spiritual beliefs.
Verrett, 51, has described himself as a ‘hybrid species of reptilian and Andromeda’ (referring to the galaxy which is supposedly home to highly evolved spiritual beings in New Age philosophy) and claims he met Martha Louise in another life when he was a Pharaoh in Egypt.
In a 2019 book that was subsequently withdrawn by its Norwegian publishers, Verrett claimed that chemotherapy is ineffective and childhood cancer arises from a child’s unhappiness and subconscious desire not to live.
Verrett has since acknowledged that some of his views are controversial and said it was never his ‘intention’ to cause a problem for the Norwegian royal family.
That said, he recently warned the forthcoming TV show might make people ‘very uncomfortable’ – which is perhaps the most kindly way of describing how most Norwegians feel towards this family right now.
Even before Marius’s shocking rape conviction, approval ratings for the royals, once feted for their fairytale image, had fallen to record lows – from highs of 84 per cent to 60 per cent. Now some are calling for the abolition of the monarchy altogether.
Although Marius doesn’t hold a royal title and has never carried out official duties, he was effectively brought up as a royal by Crown Prince Haakon (the equivalent of Prince William) who went on to have two children with Mette-Marit: Princess Ingrid Alexandra, 22, and Prince Sverre Magnus, 20.
Marius’s biological father Morten Borg, a businessman whom Mette-Marit had a brief fling with before meeting Haakon at a music festival, has also served time in jail – for drug offences.
However, he was brought up in the royal fold and made an angelic-looking page boy at the lavish wedding in Oslo Cathedral in 2001.
Yet Marius appears racked by both his privilege and outsider status from childhood.
In court he tearfully described being ‘harassed and tormented’ from the age of three, leading a life few could relate to.
He sa…
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