Marius Borg Høiby, 27, the eldest son of Princess Mette-Marit of Norway, has been charged with bodily harm allegedly committed against a woman on the evening of Sunday, August 4. The young man, the son of a relationship prior to his mother’s marriage to Haakon, the heir to the Norwegian throne, was detained for a few hours by law enforcement and then released. “It is a serious matter as the police are involved, but it would not be right for me to go into details,” Prince Haakon told VG from Paris, where he is following his compatriots’ participation in the Olympic Games as have other members of European royal houses, such as the King and Queen of Spain.
The Norwegian Crown Prince and Princess were due to arrive in the French capital on Tuesday. However, Mette-Marit has temporarily postponed the trip and her husband has travelled to France alone. “She has acted as a mother and not as a princess, and this is a very difficult issue for the whole family,” said Caroline Vagle, a Norwegian reporter specialising in royal affairs, over the phone. In Paris, Haakon said he still does not know whether the princess will be able to travel to meet him. “She was hoping to be here, but in families it is sometimes important to stay. We have discussed it and decided so,” he added to VG. The prince declined to go into details: “Because this affects me too, and I am here to support our team at the Games.”
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The rest of the Norwegian royal family has not yet commented. “Although the news has fallen like a bombshell and has been picked up by both the tabloid press and the rest of the media,” Vagle said. The Norwegian magazine Se og Hør, which specialises in following famous people, reports that the 20-year-old girl was with Marius Borg Høiby in an apartment in the Frogner district of Oslo. According to the Dagbladet newspaper, the place “was destroyed” and the young woman called the police. She went to the hospital and was released after a while, although the nature of her injuries has not been revealed. The son of the Norwegian princess was subjected to a test to determine if he was under the influence of any substance, and already has a lawyer. A VG note indicates that Marius is in a relationship with the young woman and the accusation has been expanded: it now describes the damage caused to the property. In both cases, Norwegian law provides for a fine or up to a year in prison. “The police confirm that Hiby is the one who is accused in the case. The charges currently include physical and material damage. There is a relationship between the accused and the victim,” the police said in a statement released on Tuesday after several media outlets began reporting the story.
From left, Ben Sylvester-Strautmann followed by his partner, Princess Alexandra of Hanover, Prince Haakon of Norway and Albert of Monaco, on Tuesday, August 6, at the athletics events of the Paris Olympic Games.Pascal Le Segretain (Getty Images)
“Marius has good family contact and has always been welcomed with affection by the kings [Harald y Sonia] “Haakon’s parents,” Vagle explains. “You can imagine how difficult this situation is for all parties involved,” he says. The young man often appears in the Norwegian media and has tried his hand at various jobs. He was an editor at a magazine that eventually closed down and has worked in the sales department of a real estate agency. His mother prefers that he not become a public figure, but her son’s love life – and his successive girlfriends – regularly make headlines.
Princess Mette-Marit had her son in 1997 while single. She was in a relationship with Morten Borg at the time, but broke up with him shortly before the child was born. Prince Haakon has repeatedly explained that one of the things that attracted him to his now wife was the commitment and determination she showed in going ahead with the pregnancy despite the couple’s break-up. On the contrary, the fact that she was a single mother became one of the obstacles they had to overcome in order to get married. That and also Mette-Marit’s troubled history related to drug use. Morten Borg was imprisoned in 1991 for dealing cocaine. When Prince Haakon announced his desire to marry, the uproar was such that he asked for understanding and she ended up apologising for her past.
Marius, who is not a member of the Norwegian royal family and has no official commitments, has two siblings on his mother’s side: Crown Princess Ingrid Alexandra, 20, and Prince Sverre Magnus, 18. His biological father divorced his wife, Celine Maktabi, with whom he had been married for 15 years, in 2019. They had a son together, Lucas. After his release, the young man temporarily moved in with his mother at Skaugum Palace, the residence of the princes, according to several Norwegian tabloids.
