Norway’s Crown Princess, Mette-Marit, has been placed on a waiting list for a transplant due to life-threatening chronic lung disease, the country’s royal household has announced.
The 52-year-old princess will not be able to fulfil her duties as a working member of the royal family, according to a press statement issued by the palace on Friday. The princess, who is married to the heir to the Norwegian throne, Haakon, was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis, a chronic progressive lung disease with a poor prognosis, in 2018.
“The progression of The Crown Princess’s lung disease is serious,” Are Holm, a consultant lung specialist at Oslo’s Rikshospitalet, said in the statement. “Following a comprehensive medical assessment, she has now been placed on the waiting list for patients who will undergo a lung transplant as soon as a suitable donor becomes available.”
The palace said that while Mette-Marit waits for a donor, she will be unable to carry out official engagements.
Her condition also has implications for her husband, the crown prince, who flew back early from an official visit to Japan this week, Reuters reported. The couple are postponing celebrations for their silver wedding anniversary in August, while Mette-Marit will no longer take part in a planned tour of Norway in September.
“The Crown Prince will adjust his program in the period ahead to spend more time with The Crown Princess,” the palace said. He will also limit the time spent on trips, both at home and overseas, in the run-up to and after the operation.
The couple’s daughter, Princess Ingrid Alexandra, has returned to Norway from Australia, where she is studying. According to the palace, she will spend the autumn semester at the University of Oslo. Her brother Prince Sverre Magnus is due to begin his studies in Europe this fall, the palace said, “and will return to Norway whenever the situation requires.”
Mette-Marit was a single mother when she met Haakon at a music festival in 1999. She became crown princess two years later, when the couple married at Oslo Cathedral in front of 800 guests and a TV audience of millions.
The royal family has made frequent headlines in recent months. The crown princess’s older son from a previous relationship, Marius Borg Høiby, has been on trial for rape, with a verdict yet to be reached. Meanwhile, the princess herself has been the focus of a separate controversy as the release of the Epstein files revealed that she previously had a close relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
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