Epstein scandal deals new blow to Norway crown princess

OSLO: Norway’s crown princess, whose son goes on trial Tuesday on rape charges, found herself embroiled in another scandal this weekend after newly unsealed files revealed her unexpected friendship with late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

The latest scandal has even raised questions about whether Mette-Marit, a commoner who married Crown Prince Haakon in 2001, could still become queen one day.

Her name appears at least 1,000 times in the millions of new Epstein documents released by the US Department of Justice on Friday, according to Norwegian daily VG.

Messages between the two published in Norwegian media date from 2011 to 2014.

In one email, Mette-Marit asked Epstein if it was “inappropriate for a mother to suggest two naked women carrying a surfboard for my 15 yr old son’s wallpaper.”

In another, she told him he was “very charming.”

When Epstein told her he was in Paris “on (a) wife hunt” in 2012, she replied saying the French capital is “good for adultery” and “Scandis (are) better wife material.”

Epstein had at that point already pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting a minor for prostitution.

The files show she also stayed at his house in Florida for four days in 2013.

On Saturday, Mette-Marit addressed her “embarrassing” friendship with the disgraced financier, who died in 2019 by suicide in jail as he awaited trial for sex crimes against minors.

“I showed poor judgment and I deeply regret having had any contact with Epstein. It is simply embarrassing,” she said in a statement sent to AFP by the royal palace.

The 52-year-old said she was responsible “for not having checked Epstein’s background more closely and not understanding quickly enough what kind of person he was.”

Yet in 2011, Mette-Marit wrote to Epstein that she had “googled” him, adding “it didn’t look too good” and ending the sentence with a smiling emoji.

She did not specify exactly what she was referring to.

According to the palace, Mette-Marit had ceased contact with Epstein in 2014 because she felt he was “trying to use his relationship with the crown princess as leverage with other people.”