Painting exposed in the National museum in Oslo, by Lena Trydal “Folkekongen”. Picture in the museum taken by Ionut Burchi.

I don’t often write about the Royal family, but today a Norwegian princess got married! Time for some updates and thoughts on recent scandals and what they mean in today’s Norwegian society.

The Norwegian Royal Family is cherished in Norway. The King is deeply loved by Norwegian people. He manages to unify the country, despite not having true political power. He shows vulnerability and cries when the country is mourning (for example after Utøya attacks), he shows a big heart and includes all citizens (on his speech on love being love, whatever your gender) and all in all shows up for his duties as a head of the Royal family. But he is getting old, which happens to the best of us (he is hitting 87). His son, Prince Haakon, is a fantastic successor, also loved by Norwegians and seen as a “man of the people”. The Norwegian Royal family is quite relaxed compared to many other Royal families in the world, and has accepted love marriages, and these couples are holding through decades. The Norwegian press is also quite respectful of the privacy of the Royal family, unlike the British press which has no rules when it comes to giving the most personal details to their readers.

So what can go wrong? A few things.

The Reptilian Shaman 

First of all, the King’s daughter is a spiritual soul, who claims she communicates with angels, and she even wrote a book about it. Nothing too scandalous, one needs hobbies when one is of royal blood and does not have to work to survive like the rest of us, I guess. She is now marrying businessman Durek Verrett, a very bizarre guy who claims to be (wait for it) a hybrid species of reptilian and andromeda. He has claims about life, women’s vagina and cancer (which comes from negative thoughts). These claims have created huge scandals in Norway, and he does not have many friends here, although he should not care too much since he gets publicity and that’s probably all the attention he wants.

The commercial Princess deals

The Angel Princess, as I call her, is also a very business-like entrepreneur. Again, nothing wrong with being an entrepreneur, but it gets a bit tricky when she uses her title as a Princess to make lucrative deals for example when she used her title to sell “Princess-gin” And just recently when it came out she and Durek have sold the exclusive rights of their wedding to Hello magazine. The two main problems here are that the Princess has promised since 2019 to stop using the title of “princess” for commercial purposes. This has been commented as “smart and wise” by the Prime Minister, and made official by the Royal family house. Yet here we are! Had Hello magazine given me 5 euros for pictures of my wedding? I doubt it, but they’ll pay millions (the amount is not public) for hers, because she is … a Princess.

The second problem is that we, tax payers in Norway, are paying quite a chunk of money for the Royal family to play this role and have this lifestyle. In 2024 the budget given by the state of Norway to the Royal family is 291,5 million kroner, with a decrease of 44 million kr compared to 2023. That is around 29 million USD/Euros for one year. So for many Norwegians, the idea that she is using the tax payers money because she is a Princess and then using again that title to earn more money is unethical and wrong.

The Step-Kid gone rogue

Last but not least, there is the recent scandal around Marius Høiby. He is in fact not of Royal blood, he is the son of Mette-Marit who married Prince Haakon. The recent scandal is that he has been accused of violence (bodily harm and damage) and then admitted he was under the influence of alcohol and cocaine when it happened. The Norwegian press is going crazy around this case, which I have to admit is hard for me to understand. The reason is that the police is doing their job as well as the justice system so I’d say let’s trust the system will deal with this case as any other similar case. The fact that Høiby is affiliated to the Royal family should not make the case easier or harder, it just needs to be fair.

How bad are these scandals for the Royal family?

Is the Norwegian Royal family just like any family with its shady characters and internal conflicts? Or is it more serious than that? The first thing to remember is that despite the Norwegian press not being as savage as the British one, any juicy news about the members of the Royal family is highly interesting, read about and therefore immediately published. Norwegian journalists won’t go climbing the windows of the palace to steal pictures, but they won’t hold back when it comes to publishing every detail of a royal scandal.

I personally believe that what is going on in the Norwegian Royal family is an illustration of what happens in any family, but on steroids, and more entertaining. However it is interesting to see when the people will get tired of the Princess and Durek’s tricks to milk that royal cow and become even more rich from their titles and exposure. Durek has been selling healing magic stones, for example, and they can go all in capitalist mogul and sell anything with their fame.

Will the King, scared to lose the confidence of the people in the royal family, make it stop? All of this is very interesting, and as we speak the wedding of the princess and the shaman is being held, and I am sure more juicy stories will come.