By Terje Solsvik and Johan Ahlander
FILE PHOTO: Norway's Crown Prince Haakon and Crown Princess Mette-Marit
OSLO, March 20 (Reuters) - Norway's Crown Princess Mette-Marit said on Friday she regretted her friendship with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, seeking to contain one of the biggest scandals to hit the country's royal family.
The U.S. Justice Department's release of millions of Epstein documents has sent shockwaves around the world, revealing the disgraced financier's ties to prominent people, including the crown princess and top Norwegian politicians, business executives and diplomats.
"I was manipulated and deceived," Mette-Marit said in a tearful interview with public broadcaster NRK screened on Friday morning.
"Of course, I wish I had never met him," she said of Epstein.
FILES SHOW FREQUENT CONTACT
The files showed frequent communication between Mette-Marit and Epstein that occurred long after he pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting an underage girl. The 52-year-old crown princess, who apologised to King Harald and Queen Sonja in a February 6 statement, has not been accused of any criminal wrongdoing.
While earlier media coverage had shown that Mette-Marit had links to Epstein, the new documents showed a more extensive relationship, prompting an unusual rebuke from the prime minister and demands that she give a full account.
The princess, the spouse of Crown Prince Haakon, the heir to the throne, maintained contact with Epstein from 2011 to 2014, and stayed at his Palm Beach house for four days during a private trip in 2013, the U.S. files show.
"He used the fact that we had a mutual friend, and that I'm gullible. I like to believe the best about people. But I also chose to end contact with him," Mette-Marit said.
"I've never seen anything illegal," she told NRK.
The Epstein files appeared to contradict a statement she gave in 2019, in which she apologised for not having investigated his past and said she would never have associated with him had she known the seriousness of the crimes he committed.
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In one released email from October 2011, three years after Epstein pleaded guilty, Mette-Marit wrote to him that she had googled him and that she agreed "it didn't look too good", followed by a smiley.
When asked about the email by NRK, Mette-Marit said she could not remember why she wrote it.
"But if I had found information that made me realise that he was an abuser and sex offender, I wouldn't have written a smiley face behind it," she said.
PERSONAL STRUGGLES
Sitting beside her, Mette-Marit's husband Haakon said he supported his wife at a difficult time and that marriage is both for "the good days and the bad".
"Mette is caring, wise and really strong. And that's why I will always have her on the team when something difficult happens," the crown prince said.
While Haakon and the rest of the royal family have maintained a busy schedule — including visiting the Winter Olympics in Italy and attending functions in Norway — the crown princess has not appeared in public for weeks.
Suffering from a chronic lung disease that will eventually require her to have a lung transplant, Mette-Marit is also dealing with the trial of her eldest son from a previous relationship, who is accused of rape and other crimes.
Her son, Marius Borg Hoiby, 29, has declared himself not guilty of rape and domestic abuse while admitting in court to some lesser charges.
The Norwegian royal family's popularity has taken a hit in recent months, a February survey of 1,009 respondents showed.
Some 60% of Norwegians supported the monarchy, down from 70% in January, according to the Norstat poll published on February 21 by public broadcaster NRK, while 27% supported a republic, up from 19% over the same period.
The prime minister's office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Terje Solsvik in Oslo and Gwladys Fouche in Oslo, and Johan Ahlander in Stockholm; Editing by Lincoln Feast and Ros Russell)