“Come save us. Im dying of boredom.” That was Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway writing to Jeffrey Epstein in 2012. The queen-in-waiting’s many messages to the convicted sex offender are cringeworthy, and they’re unfortunately not the only contact between Epstein and prominent Norwegians. Together with Mette-Marit, two top diplomats, a former prime minister, and the head of the World Economic Forum have caused Norway severe reputational harm.
Mette-Marit is married to Crown Prince Haakon, heir to the Norwegian throne. She met Epstein some time in 2011, three years after he was convicted of soliciting prostitution and soliciting prostitution with a minor. “Ha ha god you work fast! I love it,” she wrote in an early message to Epstein. “But then again im not overly focused on details. I’m more the emotional picture kind of gal Try read with your gut not your intellect.” She added, “Googled u after last email Agree didn’t look too good.”
“Come save us. Im dying of boredom.” That was Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway writing to Jeffrey Epstein in 2012. The queen-in-waiting’s many messages to the convicted sex offender are cringeworthy, and they’re unfortunately not the only contact between Epstein and prominent Norwegians. Together with Mette-Marit, two top diplomats, a former prime minister, and the head of the World Economic Forum have caused Norway severe reputational harm.
Mette-Marit is married to Crown Prince Haakon, heir to the Norwegian throne. She met Epstein some time in 2011, three years after he was convicted of soliciting prostitution and soliciting prostitution with a minor. “Ha ha god you work fast! I love it,” she wrote in an early message to Epstein. “But then again im not overly focused on details. I’m more the emotional picture kind of gal Try read with your gut not your intellect.” She added, “Googled u after last email Agree didn’t look too good.”
The two continued their jokey, often flirtatious correspondence while meeting in locations around the world, including Epstein’s Palm Beach, Florida, home. Mette-Marit’s messages featured comments like “Paris good for adultery Scandis better wife material,” “You r such a sweetheart,” and “What do you have to do besides seeing me ??????” The exchanges, now reprinted around the world, are mortifying for the Norwegian royal family and for Norway as a whole.
They’re also damaging to Norway’s pristine international standing, especially because Mette-Marit sent Epstein uncharitable observations from official engagements. “@boringparty,” she emailed him on one occasion. Another time, she emailed him from the wedding of Prince Guillaume, Luxembourg’s heir to the throne, saying, “Boring wedding. Was like some kind of old movie. Where you know the characters are not hanging around for much long.” The wedding was Luxembourg’s largest royal event in several decades. Norway is lucky that Mette-Marit didn’t diss a more powerful heir in that fashion.
Making matters worse, Mette-Marit is not the only Norwegian VIP to have maintained relations with Epstein after his 2008 conviction. Borge Brende, a former foreign minister, dined with him several times in 2018 and 2019—at which point he’d already taken up his position as president and CEO of the World Economic Forum.
One of Brende’s dinners with Epstein was attended by another Norwegian, Terje Rod-Larsen. A former top diplomat, Rod-Larsen went on to serve as president of International Peace Institute (IPI), a New York-based think tank, which has received around $10.4 million from the Norwegian Foreign Ministry. (Steve Bannon also joined the group at the dinner.) Rod-Larsen shot to fame during the Oslo Accord negotiations in the early 1990s, in which he was a crucial mediator along with his wife, fellow Norwegian diplomat Mona Juul. Norwegian investigative reporters first uncovered the couple’s links to the notorious financier a few years ago, and now the Epstein files have delivered further mortifying details.
The couple’s contact with Epstein included correspondence and social meetings; Rod-Larsen visited Epstein’s New York apartment at least 20 times. The relationship was, in fact, a remarkable give and take. At Epstein’s behest, Rod-Larsen helped one Russian woman with her visa application and provided her with work and provided another one with a more formal role at IPI; both said they were abused by Epstein. For his part, Epstein gave Rod-Larsen a significant loan and went to brutal lengths to force a Norwegian shipowner to sell his exclusive Oslo apartment to the diplomat couple for far below market value. According to the Norwegian public broadcaster NRK, Epstein bequeathed the couple’s two children $10 million in his will.
Such behavior is light-years away from what the world expects from diplomats representing a country ranked fourth on Transparency International’s Corruptions Perception Index. Unsurprisingly, the Norwegian Foreign Ministry placed Juul on leave from her ambassador post after the latest revelations emerged. Juul subsequently resigned, and the couple is now being investigated by Okokrim, the Norwegian police’s economic crime unit.
And then there’s Thorbjorn Jagland. Jagland is a former Norwegian prime minister and foreign minister; he later went on to chair the Norwegian Nobel Committee and became secretary-general of the Council of Europe. Jagland, too, met with Epstein several times in the 2010s and maintained correspondence with him. “I have been in Tirana (Albania) extraordinary girls. Going to Jordan, Palestine and Israel. Back on Thursday,” he wrote in an email. Epstein paid for travels for Jagland and his family and even a doctor’s visit for Jagland’s wife. Epstein also parlayed his friendship with Jagland in emails with Bill Gates, Peter Thiel, Ehud Barak, and others, calling Jagland “Nobel Peace big shot” and “Mr. Human Rights.” Epstein even hoped that Jagland would introduce him to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Jagland’s utter carelessness, too, is devastating for Norway. The very thought that the Nobel Peace Prize could be influenced through gifts to its chairman degrades the prize’s stratospheric status and reputation. Okokrim is now investigating Jagland on suspicion of aggravated corruption.
The vast majority of Norwegian leaders are not in the Epstein files. But the fact is that five VIPs (plus former Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, who features less prominently) have maintained friendships with Epstein, apparently for their own benefit. That, of course, was the nature of Epstein’s network, in which everyone involved was hoping to get something. The five Norwegians are already being tried in the court of public opinion, which has not been merciful. Some of them may end up being tried in courts of law, too.
Now, the whole country is suffering the collateral damage of a few leaders’ misdeeds. Norway will be linked to Epstein for months, perhaps even years, to come. Haakon’s predicament, and that of the royal family, is obvious to all. As for Norway’s politicians, they will be viewed differently around the world, and so will its diplomats. In the eyes of some Palestinians, Rod-Larsen and Juul’s behavior has already reinforced suspicions about the integrity of the Oslo Accord negotiations.
Such reputational harm is a tragedy for this small nation, which has transformed its fortunes through the discovery of oil — and through hard work and incorruptibility. There’s a reason that Norway’s sovereign wealth fund is the world’s largest by far.
The damage to Norway’s diplomacy is particularly severe, because it has enjoyed a well-earned reputation as a rare country with the skills and standing to mediate in the world’s most convoluted conflicts. Now that status is tarnished—at precisely the time when the world needs skilled negotiators.
