Norway crown princess says she was ‘manipulated’ by Epstein

Norway’s Crown Princess Mette-Marit said in an interview broadcast Friday that she was “manipulated” by convicted US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, whom she accused of extorting others.A commoner who married Crown Prince Haakon in 2001, Mette-Marit’s name appears multiple times in Epstein documents released by the US Department of Justice earlier this year.The files revealed an unexpectedly close friendship between the pair and raised questions in Norway about whether Mette-Marit can become queen, with recent polls showing that a majority of Norwegians oppose the idea.“Of course I wish I had never met him,” she told public broadcaster NRK during the roughly 20-minute interview, her first since the scandal broke in Norway.“It is extremely important for me to acknowledge that I did not look into his past more carefully, and also to acknowledge that I was manipulated and deceived to such an extent,” she said.She also sought to squash speculation about the nature of her relationship with Epstein, who pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting a minor for prostitution and died in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking.