As comfortable in a duffel coat as in ceremonial dress, Norway's King Haakon is the new face of a monarchy long praised for its modernity and modesty, but now beset by woe and scandal.
Norway's King Haakon VIII automatically succeeded to the throne after his father, King Harald, passed away on Friday. He is the new face of a monarchy long praised for its modernity and modesty, but in recent years it has been beset by woe and scandal, including revelations about the queen's friendship with disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
King Haakon, 53, has increasingly seen his family's affairs plastered across front pages: his wife's lung transplant, revelations about her ties to convicted US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, his stepson sentenced to four years for rape, and the escapades of his eccentric sister and her American husband, a self-proclaimed shaman.
Tall, stately and bearded, Haakon himself reflects a Norwegian society that shuns opulence and ostentation.
He has focused his attention on issues that concern many of his generation, including environmental protection and fighting racism and homophobia.
"It's important that we protect who we are and for Norway to be a country where we're allowed to love and be with whoever we want," he said, the day after a bloody attack against the gay community in Oslo on Pride Day in June 2022.
Born on July 20, 1973, the prince attended state-run daycare and schools in line with the wishes of his parents, King Harald and Queen Sonja, who were keen to see him grow up among "ordinary" Norwegians. Haakon is a fan of skiing, surfing and windsurfing as well as music.
After secondary school he spent three years in the navy, where he served primarily as an officer on a torpedo boat.
He went on to earn a bachelor's degree in political science at the University of California at Berkeley and a master's in international politics at the London School of Economics.
It was at a 1999 music festival at Kristiansand in southern Norway that he met his future wife, whose tumultuous past made headlines in the Scandinavian country.
"I just looked at her. She was like a light," Haakon wrote in his autobiography.
Born on August 19, 1973, in Kristiansand to a journalist father with alcohol problems and a bank clerk mother, Mette-Marit Tjessem Hoiby grew up in Protestant Norway's "Bible Belt".
She once described herself as "the most conscientious teenager in the world" until she turned 16 and went to Australia for a year abroad with her school. The experience was transformative, and saw her break free and reinvent herself.
Upon her return to Norway, she shaved her head and got engaged to a man who introduced her to Oslo's house music scene – where she experimented with hash and ecstasy, according to an unofficial biography. At 24 she gave birth to Marius after a brief romance with another man, who had a criminal record including assault and cocaine possession.
"My teenage rebellion was stronger than most people's," she acknowledged to reporters ahead of her August 2001 marriage to Haakon.
But Norwegians quickly saw beyond her colourful past. Between 2000 and 2002 she studied ethics at the University of Oslo and took courses at London's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), with a focus on international development and refugee issues, as well as HIV/AIDS.
Mette-Marit also became involved with several charities, promoted Norwegian authors internationally and encouraged young people to read.
In 2004 she gave birth to Ingrid Alexandra, who is expected one day to be queen, and a year later to son Sverre Magnus.
But storm clouds were building on the family's horizon.
Haakon's sister Martha-Louise, a fan of alternative therapies, has repeatedly been accused of exploiting her princess title for commercial purposes. She made headlines once again in 2024 by marrying a self-proclaimed shaman, Durek Verrett, described as a "charlatan" by his critics.
Haakon's stepson Marius, whom he reportedly treated as his own, was arrested in August 2024 and sentenced to four years in prison in June of this year for rape and assault. He has appealed.
Just days before the conviction, Mette-Marit underwent a lung transplant for the pulmonary fibrosis with which she was diagnosed in 2018. Her illness had required her to cut back on public engagements.
The Norwegian media in February published troubling revelations about Mette-Marit's friendship with Epstein in the early 2010s. Even though the American financier had already been convicted of soliciting a minor, she had been in frequent contact with him, their emails indicating a close relationship.
Three years after his first conviction, Mette-Marit wrote to Epstein in 2011 that she had "Googled" him, adding "it didn't look too good" and ending the sentence with a smiling emoji.
When Epstein told her he was in Paris on a "wife hunt" a year later, she replied that the French capital is "good for adultery" but that "Scandis [are] better wife material".
In 2013, she stayed at his Florida home for four days.
Mette-Marit later said she had been "manipulated and deceived".
"I deeply regret having had any contact with Epstein. It is simply embarrassing," she said.
King Harald defended her, saying she had broken no laws and noting that she had ended the friendship.
But several polls showed Norwegians no longer deemed her suitable to become queen one day. The scandals tarnished the royal family's image and weakened its support in the Scandinavian country, though it remains broadly popular.
"When you get married, it's for better or for worse," Haakon remarked in March during a televised interview with the couple about the Epstein revelations.
*(FRANCE 24 with AFP) *
