In less than two weeks, Marius Borg Høiby, the son of Norway’s Crown Princess Mette-Marit, will head to court to face charges including the alleged sexual assault of four different women. Initially indicted in August by the Norwegian Public Prosecutor’s Office for 32 offenses, this week that agency has added has added six new charges to the case. [Editor’s Note: In Norway, the crime of rape also includes incomplete sexual acts committed against a victim who is unable to resist.]
The most serious of the new charges allegedly occurred in July 2020, when Marius was said to have received and transported at least 3.5 kilos of marijuana from Lørenskog to Tønsberg (locations located an hour and a half away by car), where he delivered it to a person. The 29-year-old, once seen as a symbol of the openness of the monarchy, has acknowledged those allegations as true, with his attorney noting that he was not paid in the incident.
Other new charges are related to two alleged violations of a restraining order, and three offenses against the Traffic Act. They follow his arrest in August of 2024, when he was accused of assaulting his then girlfriend while in his apartment in Frogner, Oslo.
He acknowledged then that he had suffered from “several mental disorders” since adolescence and had “struggled with substance abuse,” saying then that “I will now resume this treatment and take it very seriously. Drug use and my diagnoses do not excuse what happened.” He was arrested again in November, this time on allegations of rape. “Our client denies all allegations of sexual abuse, as well as most allegations of violence,” attorney Petar Sekulik told the New York Post of the claims last year.
Though born to Princess Mette-Marit, Marius Borg Høiby does not have a royal title: his father is businessman Morten Borg, with whom the princess had a relationship before meeting Haakon, Crown Prince of Norway, the heir to the Norwegian throne. When the royal couple married in 2001, Marius was 4 years old. Since then, he has grown up as part of the royal family, but does not have a claim to the throne.
The case is but one of the challenges presently faced by Norway’s royals. King Harald, Borg Høiby’s grandfather by marriage, is now 88 years old, and in delicate health. Meanwhile, Princess Mette-Marit is awaiting a possible lung transplant after years of chronic illness that has forced her to withdraw from the official agenda with no date for her return. And just over a year ago, in 2024, Princess Märtha Louise of Norway resigned from her royal duties to marry the shaman Durek Verret, a union that has caused a break within the family.