Image from seemingly peaceful days: This is how the Norwegian royal family celebrated Princess Ingrid Alexandra’s 18th birthday in 2022 (front center).Image: www.imago-images.de
The Epstein case and the Marius Borg Høiby case reveal the darkest sides of the British and Norwegian monarchies and an image of humanity that comes from old feudal structures.
Feb 6, 2026, 6:39 p.mFeb 6, 2026, 6:39 p.m
There are real monarchies and imaginary ones. The former are currently being scrapped collectively, have rotted, degenerated, and become brutalized. The others are blooming. What is not possible! A black British queen in “Bridgerton”! A gay Swedish crown prince in “Young Royals”! Patent young American women who get European princes from principalities with fantasy names and modernize men like Fürstenturm in no time! Fairytale!
The reality? It’s not a fairy tale. Is populated by people who simply didn’t want to be given a moral compass by life. Self-righteous, deluded, naive, stupid narcissists who act as if they were still in a feudal age when all power belonged to the crown and their fellow human beings were nothing but subjects to be (ab)used at will.
The most recent example: the Norwegians. The so-called “bonus prince” Marius Borg Høiby, who is not a real prince because his mother Mette-Marit brought him into the crown prince’s marriage, but who nevertheless benefits from everything that a courtly life has to offer, is on trial for several possible crimes, including sexual assault and rape. And what does he do? He complains, he cries, he portrays himself as a victim, says he was never more than his mother’s son, that’s what triggered him. Clear. Go ahead and cry.
Court sketch by Marius Borg Høiby.Image: keystone
And the mother? After a good ten years of marriage to Crown Prince Haakon, he had a frivolous chat or, in plain language, flirted with Jeffrey Epstein. Lived in his Lolita castle in Palm Beach in 2013 and did yoga there. Found it incredibly relaxing. Didn’t ask any questions, found him charming. Her name appears over 1,000 times in the Epstein files. She once asked him whether it was “inappropriate for a mother” to suggest to the then 15-year-old Marius a picture of “two naked women with a surfboard” as a wallpaper motif for his boys’ room.
The son faces a prison sentence. And the mother? Norway wonders whether she can or should become queen now. Kind of… right? And how does the future King Haakon justify the fact that his stepson may have become a soon-to-be convicted sex offender under his roof? That his wife was friends with Epstein?
Ingrid Alexandra, Haakon and Mette-Marit (from left) in April 2025.Image: keystone
And then the British. Andrew, once the well-liked, dashing bon vivant prince, was transformed over the course of the Epstein case into an unscrupulous, unreasonable monster who allowed Epstein to keep countless women, including minors. Meanwhile, his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, who presumably initiated the contact between Andrew and Epstein, had Epstein pay off her debts and repeatedly showed him her daughters – not to set them up with him, but simply as a welcome template for Epstein’s perverse fantasies. The daughters as decoys for money. It’s incredibly shabby.
Sarah Ferguson with her very useful daughters Beatrice (left) and Eugenie.image: imago/PicturePerfect
Meanwhile, King Charles is trying to make good weather on all channels and is also getting into bed with Trump’s Big Tech mafia: At the same time as “Melania”, Jeff Bezos also financed a Charles documentary in which the king looks like he is on an acid trip, he writes Guardian. “Walks through forests are good because pine particles get into the bloodstream,” the king announced, “the real estate crisis is due to the fact that people don’t want to live in ugly high-rise buildings; and that the universe is full of patterns that repeat through space and time, demonstrating a harmonious mathematics that influences our emotions and well-being. Title of the film: “Finding Harmony”.
Charles and Camilla at the premiere of “Finding Harmony: A King’s Vision” at Windsor Castle on January 28, 2025.Image: keystone
A sideshow: the Swedes. Princess Sofia, who was married, gave Epstein’s Swedish pimp Barbro Ehnbom unhindered access to the royals. Ehnbom had once tried unsuccessfully to introduce Sofia to Epstein, then Sofia chose Ehnbom of all people to prepare her for the court. Knowledge of human nature? Zero.
Even though another royal family lights up in the Epstein files? Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark or Spain? Couldn’t Juan Carlos have been a prototypical Epstein buddy? Hunting for young women instead of elephants? And how about the Principality of Liechtenstein? Monaco? Everything seemed to fit. Everything would be totally inappropriate.
Queen Sofia and King Juan Carlos (in a wheelchair), at a royal wedding in Jordan in 2023.Image: www.imago-images.de
The Epstein case and, in its shadow, the Marius case are something like a final, moldy thread that crumbles when touched and causes the seams of several royal families to burst. In the last few decades they have only been held together with a lot of complacent auto-suggestion.
Attempts to break out and modernize by younger generations were initially suppressed. Sometimes the demonstrations of tradition and convention were louder, sometimes quieter. Just how absurdly far-fetched the idea of a black queen is for the Windsors was demonstrated a few years ago by a stubborn cousin of the queen who didn’t hesitate to wear a brooch with a racist motif from colonial times to a Christmas lunch with Meghan Markle, the daughter of an African-American woman.
Princess Michael of Kent and her brooch of offense.Image: UK Press
Perhaps the thorough implosion of the hitherto unremarkable Norwegian Royal Family will one day be described in history books as the beginning of the end. As the key moment when it became clear to everyone that the monarchies should be abolished. France has shown the way: Versailles now belongs to everyone. Today’s royals have had their entertainment value, but if they don’t know how to behave like responsible subjects, they aren’t worth their privileges. The rest is Netflix.