The Norwegian Royal Palace released a new family portrait of Mette-Marit to mark her 53rd birthday. The image shows her with Crown Prince Haakon, Princess Ingrid Alexandra and Prince Sverre Magnus at the palace.
The caption on the royal family’s official Instagram read: "Congratulations to Her Royal Highness Crown Princess Mette-Marit, who turns 53 today!" The Palace said the photograph was taken earlier this year, giving the birthday release the feel of a deliberate public appearance after months of reduced visibility.
The palace image and her recovery
Mette-Marit has been recovering from a lung transplant in June, after her pulmonary fibrosis worsened and her public schedule narrowed. Before the surgery, she had continued some royal engagements with an oxygen cannula, a detail that now gives the new portrait added weight as an official image of the future queen at a difficult moment.
This is the kind of birthday portrait that usually reads as ceremonial. Here, it lands differently because it follows a year in which Mette-Marit has been stepping back from public engagements while the royal household manages health-related changes at the top of Norway’s monarchy.
Jeffrey Epstein and Marius Borg Høiby
The family portrait also arrives after a year of controversy tied to Jeffrey Epstein and Marius Borg Høiby. In March, Mette-Marit said on national television, "It is incredibly important for me to take responsibility for not checking his background more carefully," and "and to take responsibility for being so manipulated and deceived as I was."
In June, Marius Borg Høiby was found guilty of two counts of rape and sentenced to four years in prison. He was also convicted of abusing an ex-girlfriend and causing serious bodily harm to another partner, while cleared of two further charges of rape. Those developments kept the royal family under intense scrutiny even as the palace chose to put out a fresh image of Mette-Marit with her immediate family.
King Harald’s sick leave
The portrait also lands in the same week that Mette-Marit made a rare public outing to visit King Harald in hospital. King Harald was admitted to the National Hospital in Oslo on Monday because of fluid accumulation, and he is receiving treatment for haemolytic anaemia.
The Royal Court said King Harald will be on sick leave for two weeks, and said, "We will return to the consequences this will have for the Royal House’s official program," while Crown Prince Haakon will serve as Regent during that period. For readers watching Norway’s royal calendar, the immediate next change is not another portrait but a shift in who is carrying the state role while King Harald recovers.
