Mette-Marit Tjessem Hoiby became Queen of Norway on 28 August 2026, when her husband acceded to the throne as King Haakon VIII following the death of King Harald V. She had been Crown Princess since her marriage in 2001. She met Jeffrey Epstein several times between 2011 and 2013, after his 2008 Florida conviction, and in 2013 borrowed a Palm Beach property owned by him for several days, an arrangement made through a mutual acquaintance.
She ended the association in 2013. She has apologised publicly twice. In 2019 she said she had not investigated his past and would not have associated with him had she understood the seriousness of his offences.
In February 2026, a week after the Department of Justice published further material under the Epstein Files Transparency Act including correspondence involving her, the Royal House issued a second statement, and in a March 2026 interview with the Norwegian broadcaster NRK she said she had been "manipulated and deceived" and that she wished she had never met him. The archive holds the correspondence itself, addressed not to her name but to her Norwegian title. Searching for "Mette-Marit" returns roughly two dozen mentions; searching for "Kronprinsessen" returns 1,126 messages, 527 sent from that address and 601 addressed to it, running from 23 October 2011 to 23 June 2014, a span that matches her own account of meeting Epstein between 2011 and 2013.
Her name also appears in a 2019 press inquiry a Norwegian journalist sent to the FBI, and on a M.A.C Viva Glam gala programme listing her as an honouree; neither of those is evidence of conduct.