King Harald V‘s death has reordered nearly everything about Norway’s royal family this week — the line of succession, the title on the palace letterhead, even the mourning schedule. What it hasn’t changed is Marius Borg Høiby’s place. Despite a rape conviction, a four-year prison sentence, and a criminal case that has consumed Norwegian headlines, Mette-Marit‘s eldest son remained close to the family through the king’s final days and into his funeral procession. Whatever the courts have decided, the family has already decided on where Borg belongs. His bond with the Glücksburg family was forged decades before any of the charges against him existed, and it has never depended on bloodline or title.
A palace childhood that predates the scandal
Borg was born before his mother’s public life began, years before she married then-Crown Prince Haakon in 2001. When Haakon proposed, he took Borg as his own, raising him alongside the two children he and Mette-Marit would go on to have, Ingrid Alexandra and Sverre Magnus. That equal footing is part of what explains his lifelong presence in official portraits and at major royal engagements.
Part of that closeness traces back to his biological father, who was serving a prison sentence for violent offenses and drug possession around the time Borg was born. He’s had little relationship with his son afterward. Haakon filled that gap. Harald and Sonja treated him as a grandchild, regardless of his legal status in the family.
The case that changed how the public saw him
© LISE ASERUDThat closeness held even as Borg’s legal troubles piled up. His first arrest came in the summer of 2024, followed by a string of arrests and releases tied to allegations of violence, drug use and breaches of a restraining order. That November, he was formally charged with abuse in a close relationship, violating a restraining order and driving without a valid license; blood tests taken during one of his detentions confirmed drug use. The mounting controversy fed persistent speculation that police and prosecutors were going easy on him because of his royal ties. It caused enough pressure that the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs revoked Borg’s diplomatic passport, prompting Haakon and Mette-Marit to address the matter publicly.
The reckoning came on June 15, 2026, when the Oslo District Court delivered its verdict after a six-week trial. Borg, then 29, was found guilty on 34 of the 40 charges against him — including two counts of rape, abuse in a close relationship, physical assault, threats, six counts of sexually offensive behavior, three restraining-order violations, and drug-related offenses. He was sentenced to four years in prison. He was acquitted of two additional rape charges and two counts of violating a restraining order.
Borg is currently serving his sentence under house arrest at Skaugum, the royal family’s official residence, while the appeal moves through the courts.
Present for the ending, and the beginning of what’s next
© CORNELIUS POPPENone of that kept him at arm’s length this summer. On August 25, as Haakon and Mette-Marit marked 25 years of marriage, the couple released a set of previously unseen photos from their 2001 honeymoon on Long Island, including a shot of a four-year-old Borg perched on Haakon’s shoulders in the surf, a small but pointed inclusion in an anniversary post shared while King Harald’s health was failing.
Days later, as Harald’s condition in Oslo’s National Hospital turned grave, Borg was granted special permission to leave house arrest and visit him. After the king died on August 28 at the age of 89, Haakon acceded to the throne as King Haakon VIII — and Borg’s place in the family’s public life only became more visible. He was granted leave from house arrest to take part in the August 31 procession that carried Harald’s coffin from the palace’s Red Salon to the Royal Chapel, walking at the rear of the coffin alongside his siblings, Crown Princess Ingrid Alexandra and Prince Sverre Magnus, under electronic monitoring.
Borg holds no title, no place in the line of succession, and no legal claim to anything the crown carries. But in the family’s most difficult week in years, he’s been a part of the proceedings — walking behind his stepfather’s father’s coffin, in the middle of the frame, exactly where the family chose to put him.
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