OSLO, NORWAY:
A fourth woman who has accused the son of Norway’s crown princess of rape testified in an Oslo court on Wednesday over an alleged rape in 2024 when he was already under investigation for other incidents.
Marius Borg Hoiby, Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s 29-year-old son from a relationship before her 2001 marriage to heir apparent Crown Prince Haakon, faces 38 charges, including raping four women while they were asleep or had passed out.
Hoiby has pleaded guilty to several relatively minor offences, but denies the rapes. He faces up to 16 years in prison if convicted.
The court heard testimony Wednesday from a woman who recounted an alleged rape on the night of November 1-2, 2024. Hoiby is accused of having engaged in sexual acts while she was asleep and of having filmed the acts without her knowledge.
As with the three other alleged rapes, the events are said to have taken place following a night of drinking — during which Hoiby is alleged to have used cocaine — after initial consensual sex in the young woman’s hotel room.
“I was getting more and more tired. I felt like I was just lying there and he just wouldn’t stop. The more tired I got, the less I took part,” she told the court.
After she had told him she wanted to sleep, she said she was woken up by “a violent blow” to her genital area.
“It was painful,” she said, adding that “I think I just froze, then I fell back asleep.”
Hoiby is accused of having filmed 27 videos and taken four sexually explicit photos that night, some of which, according to the prosecution, show the woman was asleep.
Hoiby will give his version of events on Wednesday afternoon. From the outset, he has denied rape and maintains that all the sex had been consensual.
At the time of the fourth alleged rape, he was already under police investigation. Hoiby was arrested on August 4, 2024, suspected of having assaulted his partner the previous night.
The investigation into that incident uncovered a slew of other suspected offences, including video footage on his phone and laptop of what police believed to be rapes.
When confronted by police, none of the women were aware of what had happened to them or that the actions could be considered criminal.
Høiby attended Wang high school, but dropped out without graduating. In 2017, he briefly enrolled at a course in “business” at Santa Monica College, a community college for non-traditional students in the US, but dropped out after a few months without completing a degree.
In late 2017, Høiby moved back to Norway briefly before working as an intern for designer Philipp Plein. He then worked as a style editor for the UK-based fashion magazine Tempus until its closure in December 2018.
Høiby has had a series of high-profile relationships. He has dated heiress Linn Helena Nilsen, model and actress Juliane Snekkestad, and influencer Nora Haukland.
In 2024, a police interrogation of Høiby revealed that Prince Haakon “together with the crown princess” paid his bills. Høiby received 20,000 kroner each month.
As of 2025, Høiby does not have a diplomatic passport. In 2024, media stated that he had abused the privilege of holding a diplomatic passport.
