Norway’s Crown Princess Mette-Marit said on Friday she regretted her friendship with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, seeking to contain one of the biggest scandals to hit the country’s royal family.
The US Justice Department’s release of millions of Epstein documents has sent shockwaves around the world, revealing the disgraced financier’s ties to prominent people, including the crown princess and top Norwegian politicians, business executives and diplomats.
“I was manipulated and deceived,” Mette-Marit said in a tearful interview with public broadcaster NRK screened on Friday morning.
“Of course, I wish I had never met him,” she said of Epstein.
Files show frequent contact
The files showed frequent communication between Mette-Marit and Epstein that occurred long after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting an underage girl. The 52-year-old crown princess, who apologized to King Harald and Queen Sonja in a February 6 statement, has not been accused of any criminal wrongdoing.While earlier media coverage had shown that Mette-Marit had links to Epstein, the new documents showed a more extensive relationship, prompting an unusual rebuke from the prime minister and demands that she give a full account.
The princess, the spouse of Crown Prince Haakon, the heir to the throne, maintained contact with Epstein from 2011 to 2014, and stayed at his Palm Beach house for four days during a private trip in 2013, the US files show.
“He used the fact that we had a mutual friend, and that I’m gullible. I like to believe the best about people. But I also chose to end contact with him,” Mette-Marit said.
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