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.
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.
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
They can definitely replace the monarch. Remember it’s a constitutional monarchy where the monarch has only ceremonial power. The throne has been given to the current royal family by the people. The people can take the crown away if they want to. Parliament just needs to amend the constitution. Also the monarch can be encouraged to step down if they are embroiled in a scandal.
Also monarchs are just humans their heads can be chopped off like any of us. They should never forget what happened to their cousin during the French Revolution.
Thoughts on the monarchy aside, I think it’s a little unfair to judge someone based on how they acted as a really young child
My assessment was not based on that one incident from when he was five.
Yup, I see that now. I agree, he’s a scumbag
And that’s why you shouldn’t white-knight random people you don’t know
Oh go fuck yourself. From the way it’s written it’s not unreasonable to think they’re talking about the kid running them over at 5 years old. Turning out to be a douchebag later doesn’t make it OK to judge a 5 year old.
No one is judging anyone except you.
False. I’m judging you to be a moron.
Oh no, we got an edgy white knight.
Shocking.
God forbid we’re unfair to this guy https://www.cbsnews.com/news/norway-crown-princess-son-rape-trial-marius-borg-hoiby/
Ok, fair. I didn’t know about that