With his father’s passing early this morning, Crown Prince Haakon is now Norway’s King Haakon VII. He steps into the role in a moment of enormous personal crisis, which we’ve been discussing for years now. In 2024, Haakon’s stepson Marius Borg Hoiby – someone Haakon had raised since boyhood – was arrested for assaulting a woman. Marius was later charged with dozens of crimes, including sexual assault and rape of multple women, and Marius was convicted of nearly every charge earlier this year. Haakon’s wife (and Marius’s mother) Mette-Marit is now queen consort, and she has spent years lying about her relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, then offering half-assed apologies whenever her lies blew up in her face. Mette-Marit also underwent a recent lung transplant, which explains her absence from public life in recent months. Basically, it’s a particularly crazy moment for Haakon to get the big job, but here we are. Tatler published a getting-to-know-the-new-king piece, which I found interesting:

Crown Prince Haakon of Norway has succeeded to the throne following the death of his father, King Harald, at the age of 89. The new King of Norway inherits a turbulent national situation. His wife, Mette-Marit, expected to now be given the title of Queen of Norway, underwent a lung transplant this year due to her pulmonary fibrosis and has stepped back from royal engagements. She has also been in the news due to her communications with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and because her son from a previous relationship, Marius Borg Høiby, has been found guilty of two counts of rape.

Between mourning the death of King Harald and navigating the decreased popularity of the Norwegian Royal Family, the new King Haakon VIII will face a plethora of challenges in the early weeks of his reign. But who is the man set to rule over Norway?

Born to the late King and Queen Sonja on 20 July 1973, Haakon Magnus was named for his great-grandfather, King Haakon VII and baptised on 20 September in the chapel of the Royal Palace. He was the younger child of the royal couple, but although the Norwegian constitution switched to absolute primogeniture in 1990, it did not retroactively apply to Haakon, so he remained heir to the throne in place of his older sister, Princess Märtha Louise.

Like many European royals of his generation, Crown Prince Haakon served in his nation’s Royal Navy, graduating from the Norwegian Naval Academy in 1995 and spending a year on missile torpedo boats and navy vessels. He then studied abroad, moving to the University of California, Berkeley, where he read for a Bachelor’s degree in Political Science. After a stint studying civil servant introductory courses back home in Oslo, he completed his education at the London School of Economics, where he specialised in international trade and African studies.

A keen sportsman, he is known to enjoy windsurfing and surfing, and has taken part in a number of Olympic ceremonies, lighting the cauldron of the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer – a role his daughter, and new heir, Princess Ingrid Alexandra, performed in 2016. Haakon takes a great interest in music, spending the relative freedom of his youth touring music festivals across Scandinavia – in 2011, he performed alongside the band Katzenjammer to raise money for the charities supported by him and his wife.

It is his wedding to Mette-Marit in 2001 that has brought Haakon closest to public scandal. The partnership was not met with universal enthusiasm among Norway’s royal circles due to her history as a ‘party girl’ who had rubbed shoulders with criminals. The daughter of ‘commoners’, Mette-Marit met Crown Prince Haakon for the first time at a music festival, although it is understood that romance did not immediately blossom. In the mid-1990s, Mette-Marit had reportedly planned to marry John Ognby, a man convicted of drug-related offences. In 1997, she welcomed a son, Marius Borg Høiby, with Morten Borg, who was also a convicted felon and one of Ognby’s close friends. This year, Marius was found guilty of two counts of rape and sentenced to four years in prison.

Despite the initial public backlash to Crown Prince Haakon’s choice of partner – her lack of formal education and royal pedigree – the royal wedding went ahead. The couple married on 25 August 2001 at Oslo Cathedral. The bride wept with joy throughout the entire ceremony, and the glorious day finished with live music and the firing of cannons.

[From Tatler]

My impression of Haakon is that he probably would have been an enormously popular king if not for his marriage to Mette-Marit. We’ll see, I guess. Throughout the day, Haakon is taking care of the business of state, meeting with counselors and officials and organizing his father’s state funeral. Mette-Marit is not by his side.

A first sight of King Haakon.

He arrives at the Extraordinary Council of State Meeting as monarch. pic.twitter.com/QCu7Oi6NxN

— Royal Central (@RoyalCentral) August 28, 2026

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images, Backgrid.