The Crown Prince of Norway talks about his love story

A new biography of Norway’s Crown Prince Haakon reveals the inner life of the royal family, offering an in-depth look at the life of the future king, from his childhood to the present day. Let’s figure out how the Crown Prince of Norway differs from others.

Crown Prince Haakon turned 50 this summer. And the release of the “royal biography”, written by the hero of the day in collaboration with Kjetil S. Ostli, was timed to coincide with this event. Recently, the prince has been increasingly performing royal duties due to health problems with the “current” king.

The book, which contains a lot of photographs from the family archive, is structured partly on a chronological basis, and a significant part of it is written in the first person, and this is the direct speech of Haakon himself, who put sincerity as the main principle of the book. He wanted to show the events and experiences that took place in his life “from the inside,” and therefore was guided by the method of “showing everything the way I see it myself, and not the way other people see and perceive it.”

In the book we see the future king, whom biographer Ostley does not hesitate to openly admire and be surprised by.

The reader gets to see little Haakon, who, he admits, “could be both shy and angry, photosensitive and withdrawn.” And this is easily explained by his origin – it is not at all easy to be born into a royal family and know from birth that you will become a king and therefore must live up to the expectations of your relatives and your people. The Norwegian royal family is known for its democratic principles, and little Haakon went to the most ordinary kindergarten “for everyone”, and then studied at a gymnasium in Oslo.

Haakon speaks very warmly of his parents and sister. They are true friends, sincere and honest with each other, ready to support in difficult times and understand what is especially important for public people.

The son speaks of his father, King Harald V, as a very kind and calm person, but his grandfather, King Olav V, could flare up and be very strict. But he was unusually generous and loved to give gifts – especially at Christmas.

Haakon speaks only in a warm tone about his mother, Queen Sonja, and sister Martha Louis, who voluntarily renounced the title of princess for personal reasons. He also remembers his former son-in-law Ari Bene, the husband of Marte Luise, who committed suicide on Christmas Day 2019, and says that he misses him.

However, the prince never allows anyone to look behind the scenes of his personal life.

When it comes to children, Haakon invariably calls himself the father of three children, although his wife’s eldest son, Marius Borg Høiby, was born in a civil marriage with Mete Marit. After the wedding of his mother and the crown prince, the boy became part of the royal family.

It cannot be said that the book describes any new facts from the life of the future king of Norway, but it is interesting to read – we learn, for example, how the crowned heads spend their holidays, we understand that their life is full of the same joys and difficulties that and among ordinary people.

About the relationship with the future Queen of Norway, whom Haakon met at a party at a music festival in her hometown of Kristiansand. The prince sincerely says that it was not easy for them to get married, because a girl from a simple family, without education and with a small child in her arms was an “unexpected” candidate for the role of crown princess. Journalists savored the details of her life for a long time, but the King of Norway further agreed to the marriage, because he himself fell in love with Sonya, who was also of non-royal origin. The prince tells the story of their love with restraint, although it becomes obvious to the reader what passions were in full swing at that time. In August 2001, their wedding took place. And Haakon behaved like the true prince that he is. Realizing that the bride was excited and not very sure that she remembered all the details of the ceremony, the future heir to the throne did not wait for the bride in the Oslo Cathedral, as protocol required, but went to meet her along the red carpet, took her hand – and together they returned to the altar. Haakon’s choice was eventually approved by the people, now the crown princess is everyone’s favorite, loving wife and mother, the ideal of the queen she turned into from Cinderella.

This year Mette Marit also turned 50, and the couple decided to make their wedding day a day to celebrate their anniversaries together.

Haakon is calm, reserved, well-educated and diplomatic. He tries to operate with facts and figures and is extremely careful in statements on domestic political topics.

Since childhood, he has led an active lifestyle and plays sports. His favorite pastime in his free time is surfing and skiing.

Some of the many issues that interest him are climate change and poverty in certain sectors of society.

Sometimes Haakon indulges in philosophizing, but unlike his sister, who hears the voices of angels, he looks at life realistically, but can pompously declare: “Life is fragile and fleeting. We are nothing more than dust, decay. At the same time, we have the blessing of the gods.”

Critics of the book joke that the prince describes the beauty of the Norwegian natural world with the cliché “magical, sacred and breathtaking” and demonstrates a rather superficial understanding of the ideological content of Henrik Ibsen’s dramas, and that he is guilty of a memory bias when it comes to the Clinton/Lewinsky affair.