By Nora Buli
OSLO, Aug 28 (Reuters) – Haakon — who comes to the throne as two major scandals batter his family — struggled for years to accept his status.
“Yes, I was a royal, but I did not want to talk about it … At school it made me anxious,” he wrote in his 2023 autobiography “Haakon”, recalling his days in a state primary in the 1980s.
Over the years, he grew into his role, becoming Crown Prince in 1991 and taking on more royal duties as his father’s health failed. On Friday he took on the crown itself following the death of King Harald.
But it was a long and sometimes difficult adjustment.
MOVED AS FAR AWAY AS POSSIBLE FROM HOME
As a child, he preferred to stay out of sight “because that is when things went wrong. Attention, other people could have that,” he wrote.
He decided not to try to follow in his father and grandfather’s footsteps to England’s University of Oxford, and enrolled instead at the University of California, Berkeley.
He wanted to be “as far away as possible” from his home. Other attractions were California’s music scene – including one memorable, heavily policed concert by the Brooklyn-born rapper Nas in the middle of the East Coast-West Coast hip hop rivalry.
And then there was the surf. “In the water, I could be myself,” he wrote.
Soon after his return to Norway in 1999 he met his future wife, Mette-Marit, at a music festival.
When the relationship became public, the media jumped on the fact that she was a commoner and a single mother who had spent a lot of time in her youth in Norway’s house music clubs.
That furore died down after King Harald — who had also married a commoner, Queen Sonja, despite his own father’s objections — publicly welcomed her into the family.
Haakon said Mette-Marit helped him come out of his shell and described her as the emotional counterweight to his analytical mind. “I am not very good socially,” he wrote. “Mette is a natural talent. She can go into a room and get along with everyone.”
They married in 2001 and had two children — Crown Princess Ingrid Alexandra and Prince Sverre Magnus, alongside Marius, Mette-Marit’s son from a previous relationship.
TAKING CARE OF THE FLOCK
More than two decades later, another media storm erupted when files published by the U.S. Justice Department in January included email correspondence between Mette-Marit and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
Mette-Marit did not respond publicly for seven weeks and Haakon released a statement saying his wife needed time to gather herself. When she did give a 20-minute interview to public broadcaster NRK in March, he was sitting by her side, saying marriage was both for “the good days and the bad”.
“Mette is caring, wise and really strong. And that’s why I will always have her on the team when something difficult happens,” the crown prince said.
At the same time the Epstein scandal was unfolding, Mette-Marit’s son Marius Borg Hoiby, Haakon’s stepson, was standing trial for rape and domestic violence, charges he denied.
Haakon issued a statement expressing sympathy with the alleged victims and saying he would not be in court.
“We support Marius in the situation he is in. We look after the other children as well,” he told reporters on the sidelines of a royal visit. “For me, the most important thing these past few days has been to take care of the flock.”
In June, Marius was found guilty of two out of four counts of rape and one count of domestic violence and sentenced to four years in prison. Both he and the prosecution have launched appeals against the sentence.
FOURTH KING OF NORWAY IN MODERN ERA
On Friday, Haakon became Norway’s fourth king in the modern era — which started when the country voted in a referendum to become a monarchy rather than a republic on declaring full independence from Sweden in 1905.
After that plebiscite, Prince Carl of Denmark became Norway’s King Haakon VII — building numerically on the line of Norwegian kings from the Viking and medieval eras.
The namesake and great-grandson of that monarch wrote in his autobiography that he had grown to embrace his public position. “I can find meaning and joy within it, and I can try and be of help to others.” If he keeps his name, he will become King Haakon VIII of Norway, though he can still choose to change it.
As for his private life, he said he still loved the water.
“As a grown-up, I am at my happiest in the water together with my family. It provides an inner peace when the flock is gathered to do what I like best: to be among the waves. Nothing beats that feeling.”
(Reporting by Nora Buli in Oslo, editing by Gwladys Fouche and Andrew Heavens)
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