File photo of Norway’s Marius Borg Hoiby. | Photo credit: AP
The fourth woman at the center of the rape case against the son of a Norwegian princess testified Wednesday (Feb. 18, 2026) in an Oslo court about the alleged rape while on trial for other incidents in 2024.
Marius Borg Hoiby, the 29-year-old son of Crown Princess Mette-Marit, who had an affair with heir Crown Prince Haakon before her 2001 marriage, faces 38 charges, including raping four women while they were asleep or unconscious.
Hoiby pleaded guilty to several relatively minor offenses but denied rape. If convicted, he faces up to 16 years in prison.
The court on Wednesday (February 18) heard testimony from a woman who described the alleged rape that took place on the night of November 1 and November 2, 2024. Hoiby allegedly committed sexual acts while she was asleep and filmed the acts without her knowledge.
Like the three other alleged rapes, the incidents are said to have followed a night of drinking – during which Hoiby allegedly used cocaine – after an initial consensual encounter in the young woman’s hotel room.
“I got more tired. I felt like I was laying there, and he wouldn’t stop. The more tired I got, the less I participated,” she told the court.
After she told him to go to sleep, she said she was awakened by a “violent blow” to her genital area.
“It’s painful,” she said, “I feel like I’m frozen, and then I go back to sleep.”
Hoiby is accused of filming 27 videos and taking four sexually indecent photos that night, some of which, according to the prosecution, show the woman sleeping.
Hoiby will give his version of events on Wednesday afternoon (February 18). From the beginning, he denied rape and claimed that all sex was consensual.
At the time of the fourth alleged rape, he was already under police investigation. Hoibi was arrested on August 4, 2024, on suspicion of assaulting his partner the previous night.
An investigation into that incident led to other suspected crimes, including video footage from his phone and laptop, police believed to be rape.
When confronted by the police, the women either do not know what has happened to them or the actions are criminalized.
Published – February 18, 2026 06:43 pm IST
