Norway’s crown prince becomes King Haakon VIII amid family scandals: From Epstein ties to a shaman brother-in-law

Haakon, Crown Prince of Norway, 53, will ascend the throne as Haakon VIII upon the death of his father, King Harald V, who died Friday at the age of 89. Born at Oslo University Hospital in 1973, his full name is Haakon Magnus, in honor of his great-grandfather, King Haakon VII, and also after a Norwegian saint and martyr. In a poll published last March by the newspaper Nettavisen, nearly 80% of Norwegians said they believed he would perform well or very well as king.

Harald reigned for 35 years and was highly popular. His son will succeed him at a time of considerable family turmoil and with a royal household that has relatively few full-time working members. The next generation of the monarchy, Princess Ingrid Alexandra and her brother, Sverre Magnus, the children of Haakon and his wife, Crown Princess Mette-Marit, are both in their twenties and still studying. Queen Sonja, now the dowager queen, remains active but is 89 years old.

The monarchy has enjoyed consistently high levels of public support in Norway ever since 1905, when, following the dissolution of the union with Sweden, Prince Carl of Denmark accepted the Norwegian crown. He took the name Haakon VII and made his acceptance conditional on a referendum endorsing the monarchy. The proposal passed with nearly 79% support, and since then Norwegian monarchs have come to symbolize national unity.

Haakon VIII benefits from that legacy to some extent, but the circumstances today are different. Norway’s sense of nationhood is not in question, and the country ranks among the world’s fullest democracies, according to the index compiled by the British magazine The Economist.

On his 50th birthday, Haakon revealed that as a child he “preferred to be just one of the group,” but over time had “embraced his role rather than simply following a path already laid out.” He made the remarks in a lengthy interview with Aftenposten, recalling that during his teenage years he sometimes wondered “whether I should just let this happen to me or choose it myself.” “I came to the conclusion that it would be best to choose it,” he said.

Haakon’s biggest challenge as king comes from his own family. Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s popularity has fallen to record lows because of her ties to Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender who died in a federal jail in New York in 2019. Marius, the son she had before her marriage to Haakon, has meanwhile been convicted of rape.

At the same time, Princess Märtha Louise, Haakon’s sister, has stepped back from royal duties since marrying Durek Verrett, a U.S. self-described shaman who has claimed to be the reincarnation of an Egyptian pharaoh. He has also said that chemotherapy treatments do not work or cure cancer and are administered only for financial gain. The princess, who has three daughters from a previous marriage, is prohibited from using her royal title for commercial purposes, a restriction that has caused friction with the royal household.

Both Princess Märtha Louise and Haakon attended public schools. The new king holds a degree in political science from the University of California, Berkeley (1999) and a master’s degree in development studies from the London School of Economics and Political Science (2003). According to the Norwegian royal household, he specialized in international trade and Africa. He interned at Norway’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations and completed the Foreign Ministry’s young professionals program. He served in the Royal Norwegian Navy, including parachute training, and holds the ranks of general in the armed forces, admiral in the navy and general in the air force. He is an avid skier, a sport deeply embedded in Norwegian identity, and also surfs.

In 2003, at the age of 30, Haakon was appointed a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), focusing on poverty reduction, ocean conservation and sustainable solutions to global challenges. In 2024, he traveled to Jamaica to highlight the challenges facing small island states from global warming and rising sea levels. Last year, he took part in the third United Nations Ocean Conference in Nice, France. Sweden’s Crown Princess Victoria is also a UNDP goodwill ambassador.

The main criticism Haakon faced as crown prince stemmed from his marriage to Mette-Marit Tjessem Høiby, the daughter of a journalist and a bank employee who divorced when she was 11. The issue was not her commoner background. Haakon’s mother, Queen Sonja, is herself the daughter of a textile businessman. Rather, the controversy centered on Mette-Marit’s “wild” past, as she herself described the period before joining the royal family.

The father of Marius, the son she had before her marriage, was convicted of drug trafficking, and Mette-Marit publicly apologized before her wedding. Nevertheless, Haakon and Mette-Marit became one of Norway’s most popular royal couples until the Epstein scandal erupted and documents revealed that the princess’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein had been closer than she had previously acknowledged.

In February 2026, she publicly apologized in a televised interview but said the disgraced U.S. financier had “deceived and manipulated” her and that she ended all contact when she realized “he was a bad person.” She has been on medical leave since undergoing a lung transplant for pulmonary fibrosis, and it remains unclear when, or to what extent, she will be able to resume royal duties.

There have been other controversies. In 2016, the then crown prince admitted he “had no right” to rent out five homes on the Skaugum estate, where the family’s residence is located. Norwegian media revealed that the rental income went directly to the royal couple, even though the property had been a wedding gift.

Now that he has crossed the threshold to the throne, Haakon faces the challenge of maintaining the monarchy’s visibility as a modern and professional institution, not merely a historical one, with only a small group of active working royals.

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