Norway’s royals have torrid year and sadness hangs over them

The Norwegian
Royal Family had another tumultuous year, with Marius Borg Høiby
charged with 32 offences and facing up to 10 years in prison, the
late-breaking news that Crown Princess Mette-Marit will require a
lung transplant in the future, and the scandal surrounding Princess
Märtha Louise and Durek Verrett’s Netflix documentary. Here are
some of the major moments the Norwegian royals faced in 2025.

THE ONGOING SCANDAL SURROUNDING MARIUS BORG
HØIBY

The controversy around Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s oldest son,
Marius Borg Høiby
continued into 2025. In August, he was officially charged with
32 offences, including four counts of rape. His stepfather, Crown
Prince Haakon,
spoke out for the first time publicly afterwards, commenting
only that “it will be the courts who decide in the
end.”

Høiby is set to go to trial in early 2026 and could face up to
10 years in prison. As 2025 came to an end, Crown Princess
Mette-Marit said that people judging her had been hard.

QUEEN SONJA IS HOSPITALISED AT THE BEGINNING OF THE
YEAR

It’s a headline nobody wants to read, but at the beginning of
the year, Queen Sonja was
hospitalised for atrial fibrillation at the Lillehammer
Hospital before being transferred to the Rikshospitalet.

At the outset, though, the Norwegian Royal Court was quick to
stress that it was not a serious health condition and there was no
cause for alarm. Within a month,
she was back at work and has been working consistently ever
since.

CROWN PRINCESS METTE-MARIT’S HEALTH TAKES A
DOWNTURN

Just as the Norwegian Royal Family was getting ready to wind
down for the holidays, they dropped sad news about Crown Princess
Mette-Marit’s health: the future queen is
being assessed for a lung transplant.

“We are approaching the time when a lung transplant must be
performed, and we are making the necessary preparations so that it
will be possible when that time comes,” Dr. Are Martin Holm,
the head of the Pulmonary Department at the Rikshospitalet,
in a statement provided by the Royal
Court.

Crown Princess Mette-Marit is not yet on the lung transplant
waiting list, but it’ll happen in the future. As she told NRK in the annual ‘Year with the Royal Family’
documentary aired at the year’s end, “I have always hoped that
we would be able to keep the disease in check with medication, and
the development has actually been quite slow up until now. Whereas
now the development has been faster than both I and the doctors had
hoped for.”

The news came
after a period of pulmonary rehabilitation in October, where
the Norwegian Royal Court announced that the crown princess would
step back from duties for the month in a bid to improve her health.
And earlier in March, the Court
revealed that her symptoms were worsening and her schedule
would change daily depending on her needs.

PRINCESS INGRID ALEXANDRA GOES DOWN UNDER

Princess Ingrid Alexandra
Raquel Pires Photography / Det kongelige hoff

After completing her military training, Princess Ingrid
Alexandra announced that for the next three years, the
third-in-line will be a student at the
University of Sydney in Australia, reading for a political
economy and international relations degree. While she’s a student,
she won’t be expected to carry out royal duties, though she
attended
several engagements before
moving to Australia and more after coming home for the
break—including
attending the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony for the first
time!

PRINCESS MÄRTHA LOUISE AND DUREK VERRETT STAR IN NETFLIX
DOCUMENTARY

A royal family rocked by the revelations in a Netflix
documentary lifting the curtains on the downside of life in a
monarchy… this year, it was Princess Märtha Louise and Durek
Verrett’s turn.

Rebel Royals: An Unlikely Love Story premiered to immediate
controversy in Norway, and it was established that the
couple had broken their agreement with the Royal Family to not use
their titles in connection with business ventures.

King Harald commented on the documentary to say, “We’re
going to try to do something about this through conversations.
We’re continuing the conversations with them. I think they’re more
in line with us than it seems.”

Crown Prince Haakon said: “We want there to be a clearer
distinction between the activities of the Royal House and Princess
Märtha Louise and Durek Verrett’s projects and commercial
activities. And I hope we can achieve that a little
better.”

Queen Sonja, however, had the best response when asked about
it. Read for yourself.