The oldest son of the crown princess of Norway, who is on trial accused of raping four women, broke down in tears as he told an Oslo court his life of excess was due to “an extreme need for recognition”.
Marius Borg Hoiby took to the stand for the first time on Wednesday, the second day of his trial. He faces 38 charges, including ten alleged sex offences and several other charges of abuse and assault against his former girlfriend and other sexual partners.
Wearing jeans, shirt and a sweater, Hoiby, 29, sobbed as he addressed the district court, saying he had been “hassled” by the media since the age of three, when the relationship between his mother and Crown Prince Haakon became public.
“It is very difficult for me to speak in front of so many people. I have been surrounded by the press since I was three. I have been harassed ever since,” Hoiby said, breaking down in tears.
“I’m mostly known as my mother’s son, not anything else. So I’ve had an extreme need for recognition my whole life,” he said. “That manifested itself in a lot of sex, a lot of drugs, and a lot of alcohol.”
He added: “Few can relate to the life I have led. A lot of parties, alcohol, some drugs.”
Hoiby has admitted at least six criminal offences, including transporting 3.5kg of cannabis, but denied raping four women. He faces up to 16 years in prison if convicted.
Earlier on Wednesday, a woman told the court that she believed she was drugged before being raped at the royal estate.
She said they had a brief, consensual sexual encounter, which she then ended. Police subsequently contacted her years later when they discovered video and images on his phone, which showed what they described as Hoiby raping her while she slept — events she had no recollection of.
Marius Borg Hoiby
NTB/OLE BERG-RUSTEN/REUTERS
“I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe that Marius would do something like that to me. It’s a betrayal and a shock,” she said.
Hoiby said he had sex with the woman but did not perform a second sex act with her while she was unconscious, or film it.
“We had completely normal sex, as far as I can remember,” said Hoiby. “Afterwards, I told her to go. So I called her a taxi.
“I don’t have sex with people who are not awake.”
The prosecution had already told the court that police had found photographs and videos in an encrypted app on Hoiby’s phone that showed him groping or having sex with the women while they were apparently unconscious.
Hoiby is the son of Crown Princess Mette-Marit, 52, from a relationship she had with a serial convict and drug dealer before she married Crown Prince Haakon, the heir to the throne, in 2001.
Hoiby and Nora Haukland
NORA HAUKLAND/INSTAGRAM
Hoiby is not officially a member of the royal household and has no royal duties.
Sturla Henriksbo, leading the prosecution, told the court on Tuesday that the criminal investigation into Hoiby had begun in 2024 after his ex-girlfriend Nora Haukland, a model and reality television personality, claimed on social media that he had subjected her to physical and psychological abuse.
Sturla Henriksbo arrives in court
NTB/OLE BERG-RUSTEN/REUTERS
The court was told that once police had confiscated Hoiby’s mobile phone they found images suggesting that he had assaulted Haukland while she was either sleeping or incapacitated by drugs or alcohol.
Hoiby admitted that he had taken a picture of himself touching Haukland’s genitalia but denied that it was rape.
Henriksbo said Hoiby’s electronic devices had also contained pictures and video of similar crimes against three other women, who cannot be identified for legal reasons. The earliest of these incidents was alleged to have taken place shortly before Christmas 2018, at a party on the royal family’s Skaugum estate.
The prosecution said the pair had briefly had consensual sex in a bathroom but images and films on one of Hoiby’s devices showed him groping the woman later that night, while she lay prone and seemingly unable to resist.
The woman told the court she had had no romantic interest in Hoiby but had found him “super nice, charming and polite” when they had met at a nightclub in Oslo that same evening. She said she had been unaware of the alleged rape until police presented her with the evidence nearly six years later.
The second rape is alleged to have taken place while Hoiby was on a surfing holiday in 2023. He matched with a woman on the dating app Tinder and the pair had consensual sex several times, the court was told. The prosecution said the woman had then fallen asleep and woken up to find Hoiby having sex with her.
The fourth and final rape allegedly happened in an Oslo hotel room in 2024, according to Henriksbo. The alleged victim had been to a concert and then willingly had sex with Hoiby before he filmed himself groping her while she lay motionless on the bed.
Hoiby pleaded guilty to carrying 3.5kg of cannabis, several speeding offences and two charges of driving without a valid licence. He also pleaded “partially” guilty to four charges of assault and “reckless conduct” towards Haukland, and to another speeding offence.
On Sunday evening he was arrested on suspicion of further counts of assault, threatening behaviour and violation of a restraining order against a woman, identified in the Norwegian media as Haukland.
The court has ordered that he be remanded in preventative custody for four weeks.
Ellen Holager Andenaes, for the defence, said that Hoiby was innocent until proven guilty but had been subjected to a large volume of negative and prejudicial press coverage.
Ellen Holager Andenaes and Petar Sekulic, from Hoiby’s legal team
REUTERS
“What all of the victims have in common is that they had consensual sex with Marius prior to the incidents described in the indictment,” Andenaes told the court. She added: “It is an environment with a lot of drug use: not just alcohol, but also illegal substances such as cocaine and other [drugs].”
The trial is expected to last for seven weeks.