In the Epstein File drops last year and this year, dozens of public figures saw their years-long communications with Jeffrey Epstein suddenly out in the public sphere. One of those public figures? Norway’s Princess Mette-Marit, wife of Crown Prince Haakon. When Epstein was arrested in 2019, it came out that Mette-Marit had “met” him several times over the years, even after his 2008 plea deal. Well, the emails revealed more of their relationship – she was constantly visiting him and emailing him throughout the 2010s, and even when she was warned to end the relationship, she did not. She has issued three separate apologies for the relationship with Epstein, each one coming after some new information was revealed. This latest chapter comes at a horrible time for the Norwegian royals, given that Mette-Marit’s son Marius is a violent and serial sexual predator and general psycho who has been on trial for the past six weeks or so. Plus, Mette-Marit has significant health issues and she’s awaiting a lung transplant. Well, now Mette-Marit and Haakon have sat down for a television interview in which she once again tries to explain her relationship with Epstein.

Norway’s Crown Princess Mette-Marit has told national TV that she wishes she had never met late US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, breaking seven weeks of silence after the extent of her contacts with him emerged.

“I feel so manipulated, and when you are manipulated, you don’t realise it from the start,” Mette-Marit said in a 20-minute interview in which she was often on the verge of tears. Seven weeks ago, Norwegians discovered that the crown princess had exchanged hundreds of emails with the disgraced Epstein between 2011 and 2014, and stayed in his Florida house when he was not there.

“It is incredibly important for me to take responsibility for not checking his background more carefully,” she said. “And to take responsibility for being so manipulated and deceived as I was.”

“Of course I wish I had never met him,” the princess told public broadcaster NRK, stressing that it was Epstein’s victims who deserved justice for the great abuse they had suffered. She said she felt great anger they had not yet received it. Her decision to speak publicly comes after intense scrutiny and pressure to explain herself, including from Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre. The crown princess gave little away during the conversation, and some of her responses came across as defensive.

In 2011, three years after Epstein had been jailed for soliciting underage sex, she wrote: “Googled u after last email. Agree didn’t look too good.”

Sitting alongside her husband, Crown Prince Haakon during the interview, Mette-Marit maintained she “didn’t know he was a sex offender or a predator”, even though the reporter pointed out that a Wikipedia article on Epstein at the time had made clear he was a convicted abuser. “I can’t remember this; it was 15 years ago….I still didn’t know anything about all the abuse. But I had understood enough that I thought he was a bad guy who people shouldn’t have contact with,” she told NRK. “And I had seen up close how he blackmailed others. So I regret that I didn’t tell more people, because I should have.”

She admitted to being too trusting of Epstein, but when asked why neither the palace nor the foreign ministry knew about her links to him, she said he was a “private contact” and she did not tell everyone about her private contacts. Asked why she spent several days in Epstein’s home in Palm Beach in 2013, she explained that it was down to an unnamed mutual acquaintance. “Epstein was a close friend of a good friend of mine,” she said.

She spoke of a “situation” that made her feel uneasy on the last day of her stay at the house, but refused to go any further, other than to say she phoned her husband about it. Crown Prince Haakon tells the interviewer that he remembers Mette-Marit’s call well and how it made his wife feel “unsafe”. Despite the incident, the crown princess maintained contact with Epstein for some time afterwards.

“I am overly trusting, I tend to think the best of people,” she said. “But I also chose to end all direct contact with him. And it was because of such episodes as that.”

[From The BBC]

The BBC’s story includes some commentary by Norwegian royal correspondents, all of whom think Mette-Marit’s explanations are half-assed and incomplete, to put it mildly, and they’re blasting her for basically arguing that she should be allowed to have friendships and relationships with p3dos because that’s her private life. Yeah, I agree? I also think it’s worth noting that Mette-Marit has not simply been evasive – her story has changed and evolved a great deal over the past decade, mostly because evidence has come out to prove that she’s lied in the past. Something else I find interesting is that Mette-Marit and Haakon sat for this interview on the final day of her son Marius’s trial. The verdict is not due until June – my guess is that they were told not to speak out until Marius’s trial was over?

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.