A Royal Crime in a Cold Climate

Prince Not-So-Charming.

Marius Borg Høiby, the son of Norway’s Crown Princess Mette-Marit, is being charged with the alleged rape of four women—will his trial bring down the monarchy?

By Peter Conradi

In the early hours of August 4, 2024, Norwegian police were called to an apartment in Frogner, an upmarket district of western Oslo, over a case of suspected domestic violence. Neighbors had been alarmed by loud cries — including one from a man heard shouting: “I want you to die.”

When officers arrived, they found a knife embedded in the wall and the chandelier shattered into fragments on the floor. The victim, in her mid-twenties, had been hit in the face, pinned down to the bed and “repeatedly choked so that she could not breathe”, prosecutors claim.

The ferocity of the attack, thought to have been the culmination of READ ON