Future Queen of Norway, Princess Mette-Marit, suffering from an incurable lung disease and whose health has recently deteriorated, has been placed on the waiting list for a lung transplant, the royal palace announced on Friday.
Aged 52, Mette-Marit was diagnosed in 2018 with a rare form of pulmonary fibrosis, a disease which causes respiratory difficulties and forced her to reduce her official activities.
“The progression of the Crown Princess’s lung disease is serious. After a comprehensive medical assessment, she has now been included on the list of people who will undergo a lung transplant as soon as possible,” explained professor and pulmonologist Are Holm of the National Hospital in Oslo (Rikshospitalet) quoted in the palace press release.
Pending the operation, the crown princess will not be able to carry out her official program and her state of health will have repercussions on the obligations of the crown prince and his entire family, the royal palace said.
The celebration of the couple’s silver wedding anniversary, which was to take place in August 2026, will therefore be postponed and the couple will not participate in the Swedish royal couple’s golden wedding anniversary in Stockholm on June 13.
The princess’s husband, Crown Prince Haakon, on an official visit to Japan between June 1 and 3, shortened his trip by one day to be with her.
Their daughter, Princess Ingrid Alexandra, has interrupted her studies in social sciences at the University of Sydney to join her mother in Norway and plans to stay in Oslo throughout the fall.
In recent public appearances, the princess was fitted with respiratory support equipment — nasal prongs connected to an oxygen machine.
In addition to her health problems, Mette-Marit has experienced difficult recent months.
Controversies and legal disputes
The publication at the end of January of documents in the United States highlighted his sustained and sometimes intimate correspondence with the sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein between 2011 and 2014.
She also had to deal with the legal troubles of her son, Marius Borg Høiby.
Born from a relationship prior to his marriage to Haakon in 2001, Høiby was tried at the start of the year for rape and repeated violence against an ex-partner, which he contests.
The verdict is expected on June 15. Høiby asked to be released before the verdict due to his mother’s health, his lawyer Petar Sekulic told Norwegian media on Friday.
