More than twenty years ago, Norwegian Princess Ragnhild uttered a phrase that sounded almost like a curse: "I hope to die before I see her as queen." She was referring to Mette-Marit, the commoner who would marry Prince Haakon. And well, the princess got her wish. She passed away in 2012 without seeing that day. But what is happening now in the Norwegian crown makes her words sound like a dark prophecy.

The situation is chaotic. Mette-Marit's son, Marius Borg, faces trial for 38 crimes, including four counts of rape. Meanwhile, the name of the heir princess appears in the declassified files of Jeffrey Epstein. And not just as a casual contact: they had a friendship that included messages in a tone of complicity. She spent four nights at Epstein's mansion in Florida. The Crown tried to contain the scandal by issuing an uncomfortable statement, but the truth was already out.

What hurts the most is the lie. In 2013, when a meeting was organized between heirs of European royal houses in the Netherlands, they said Mette-Marit was ill. Epstein's documents reveal that she was actually in New York, with the pedophile. While Felipe and Letizia of Spain, Victoria and Daniel of Sweden, and other European heirs gathered, she missed her institutional responsibilities. Prince Haakon attended that meeting alone.

Ragnhild saw all this coming. In that 2004 interview, she also harshly criticized another princess: her niece Marta Luisa of Norway. When Marta Luisa was about to marry Ari Behn, a commoner writer, Ragnhild was blunt: "They are negative for the monarchy, I am sure of that." And she was right. That marriage ended in divorce, and Behn fell into a deep depression that led to his suicide on Christmas 2019. Marta Luisa of Norway, like Mette-Marit, represented everything Princess Ragnhild saw as a threat to the institution.

Now Mette-Marit is 52 years old and has suffered from pulmonary fibrosis since 2018. Last December, the Crown announced she would need a lung transplant. The stress over her son's situation has devastated her. Prince Haakon told the press: "I have to take care of Mette-Marit. She needs time to recover." But time is not something they have. Marius's sentence could mean up to 16 years in prison.

King Harald, who just turned 89, went to Milan with Queen Sonja to support the national team at the Winter Olympics. A way to keep the Crown out of this storm. In his absence, Haakon acts as regent. But the question everyone is asking is whether the Norwegian monarchy will survive this.

There are rumors that Princess Ingrid, who studies in Sydney far from all controversy, might leapfrog her father in the line of succession. Other European monarchies have already made drastic decisions. King Felipe VI of Spain handled his father's crisis well. In Britain, William urged Charles III to definitively strip his brother Andrew of his titles. But Haakon has yet to show whether he prioritizes the institutional over the private. His recent public statements suggest he does not: "For me, the most important thing has been to take care of my loved ones. We support Marius in his situation."

Although Princess Ragnhild had been away from royalty for years, she understood its rules better than anyone. It was not a prophecy, but the vision of someone who did everything to keep her Royal House alive. And she was right. She died in Rio de Janeiro without seeing Mette-Marit become queen. But she also did not see the catastrophe that would come afterward.