Norway: From Silence to Strategic Withdrawal
🫏 A Hack Mule Royal Comms Crisis Analysis
I’m going to be watching a huge communications nightmare unfolding in Norway this week. On Tuesday, 29-year-old Marius Borg Høiby goes on trial facing 38 counts of sexual and violent crimes, drug offenses, and other infractions.
Analysts are calling it the biggest case since the Anders Behring Breivik terror attack trial in 2012. I’m calling it the biggest crisis-communications case study I’ve seen in years.
Why is it so big? Because this is no sweeps-week episode of Law & Order — this is The Crown. Høiby’s stepfather is Crown Prince Haakon, heir to the Norwegian throne.
The story just got even busier this weekend, when the Høiby case converged with the Jeffrey Epstein story. On Saturday, the U.S. Department of Justice released another tranche of Epstein papers, including more than a thousand mentions of Høiby’s mother, Crown Princess Mette-Marit.
This isn’t completely new. Mette-Marit admitted back in 2019 to an acquaintance with Epstein, but these documents show far more — flirtatious emails, vacations at his homes, and intimate exchanges where she treats Epstein almost like a therapist.
She also claimed in 2019 that she regretted not researching Epstein, but the new documents show her telling him that she had Googled him and that his background post-conviction “doesn’t look good.” She continued the friendship with him anyway — completely contradicting her 2019 account.
The latest news is still breaking — and the commentary all weekend has been brutal — but neither the horrifying two-year investigation into Høiby’s activities nor Mette-Marit’s previous revelations about Epstein has damaged the monarchy’s standing much.
According to state broadcaster NRK, support for the monarchy has dropped from 81% in 2017 to 70% today. But some observers blame that not on Haakon or Mette-Marit but on Princess Martha Louise, Haakon’s sister, who married a controversial self-styled “shaman” in 2024.
(Martha Louise tells her own story in the Netflix film, “Rebel Royals: An Unlikely Love Story.” Watch it. For laughs.)
The fact that Høiby’s case hasn’t rocked opinion polls more surprises me, but Norwegian attorney Patrick Lundevall-Unger told Bunte recently that the public views Høiby — who looks like a cross between Draco Malfoy and a low-budget Bond villain — as the “black sheep” of the royal family, so public reaction is already baked in.
Could be, but I think there’s more spin going on behind the scenes. I started digging into the palace communications team’s approach, and it comes down to three things: silence, soft statements, and strategic withdrawal.
Silence is not a bad strategy in a situation like this, since the media will dissect every utterance from anyone connected. In response to reporters at events shortly after Høiby’s arrest, both Haakon and his father, King Harald, explained that they could not comment on a case for fear of biasing it. And they said nothing more.
That held the line for a few weeks until accusations piled up and the alleged victims’ names appeared in the media. At that point, the messaging shifted to “soft statements.” The king carefully expanded his comments to express his concern about “those involved,” while Haakon said that Marius remains a “loved” member of the family.
Online pundits were baying for blood, but the acknowledgements seemed to calm the situation.
Strategic withdrawal is a little more complicated, but it’s a tool the Norwegian royal house has deployed with Mette-Marit for years.
The crown princess has had a long run of medical ailments throughout her time in the public eye, from broken ankles to chronic pulmonary fibrosis. Quite a few of these illnesses have appeared just before or during stressful public events — including state visits, the Nobel Prize awards, and the Olympics — rendering Mette-Marit unable to attend.
More recently, medical issues have taken her off center stage just as new legal and personal issues have appeared.
August 2024: Mette-Marit backed out of attending the Paris Olympics just as news broke that Marius had been arrested and detained after a reported domestic violence event.
October 23, 2024: The royal house announced that Mette-Marit would be on sick leave because of her pulmonary health issues — a few days later, she was in London shopping with Marius and Haakon.
September 2025: The royal court announced that she was stepping back due to her pulmonary issues, just days after prosecutors indicted Høiby on 32 criminal counts, including rape and domestic violence.
December 2025: Mette-Marit announced that her condition had worsened and she might need a lung transplant, just as police announced additional charges against Høiby.
January 28, 2026: Haakon announced that Mette-Marit would be withdrawing from public duties and going on “a private trip.” The next day, the latest Epstein documents appeared.
I don’t mean to suggest that Mette-Marit’s illnesses are anything less than serious — indeed, the stress of the news around her might even be exacerbating things — but withdrawing her from the public eye does seem to be a convenient tool for the palace.
Other Norwegian institutions have done a little time-shifting of their own. For instance, last fall, the court moved Høiby’s trial date from January to February 3, 2026, putting it just three days before the beginning of the Winter Olympics — an event sure to capture the attention of Norwegians and overshadow the trial.
But the case won’t wrap up until March, long after the Olympics end. If the panel of judges finds Høiby guilty on the most serious counts, he could face a decade or more in prison. If he goes free, the Royal Family could face questions about entitlement and privilege.
As for Mette-Marit, the court of public opinion will determine her outcome. Norwegian politicians seldom wade into royal business, but on February 1, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre (who is a close friend of the Crown Prince couple) said:
“The Crown Princess herself has said that she showed poor judgment, which I agree with.”
Will that translate into changes in the royal house? Or will the public lose interest in pillorying a woman facing a lung transplant whose son is looking at serious prison time?
I’m just eager to see how they message it all.
Great article on the communications aspects of this developing scandal. Not sure how I would advise the royal family now. Earlier, I thought of finding a sympathetic journalist for Mette-Marit to tell about her experience as a parent, wife, and member of the royal family. However, I think that ship has sailed.
Interestingly, the Times of London reported this morning that support for Norway's royal family stood at about 70 percent as of last week. Who knows where it stands today. The article mentioned that the nation's parliament has voted on abolishing the monarchy nearly every year since 1968. The proposal has been defeated each time. Given that the tentacles of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal have reached those in power in Norway even beyond the royal family, could this scandal mean the end of the Norwegian monarchy?