Mette-Marit, Crown Princess of Norway

Mette-Marit, Crown Princess of Norway (born Mette-Marit Tjessem Høiby,, on 19 August 1973) is a member of the Norwegian Royal Family.

She is married to Crown Prince Haakon, the heir apparent to the Norwegian throne, making Crown Princess Mette-Marit the next Queen consort of Norway.

In the 1990s she was in a relationship with John Ognby, a man convicted of drug-related offenses.

The relationship with Ognby got serious to the degree that they had bought her wedding dress for their planned wedding.

A TV2 documentary titled Mette-Marit – vår tids Askepott focused on Mette-Marit's past.

In the late 1990s, Mette-Marit attended the Quart Festival, Norway's largest music festival, in her hometown of Kristiansand.

She met Crown Prince Haakon at a garden party during the Quart Festival season.

Years later, after becoming a single mother she met the prince again at another party related to the festival.

Since becoming Crown Princess, Mette-Marit has taken several university-level courses.

Her half-brother, Trond Berntsen, by her mother's 1994 marriage to Rolf Berntsen, died in the 2011 Norway attacks.

Mette-Marit grew up in Kristiansand, spending many weekends and holidays in the nearby valley of Setesdal and on the coast, where she learned to sail.

During her youth, she was active in the local Slettheia youth club, where she was also an activity leader As a teenager, she played volleyball, qualifying as a referee and coach.

After starting at Oddernes upper secondary school in Kristiansand, Mette-Marit spent six months at Wangaratta High School located in North East Victoria in Australia as an exchange student with the exchange organisation, Youth For Understanding.

Later, she attended Kristiansand Cathedral School, where she passed her final examinations in 1994.

She then spent several months working for the Norwegian-British Chamber of Commerce at Norway House in Cockspur Street, London.

When her assignment in London ended, Mette-Marit relocated to Norway.

By her own admission, Mette-Marit experienced a rebellious phase before she met Crown Prince Haakon Magnus.

As a part-time student, she took six years, longer than usual, to complete her high school education before going on to take preparatory college courses at Agder College.

She then worked on and off as a waitress at the restaurant Café Engebret in Oslo.

In 1997 she had a son with Morten Borg, who was also a convicted felon and one of Ognby's close friends.

At the time of their engagement, Mette-Marit was a single mother to a son named Marius Borg Høiby, born 13 January 1997 at Aker Hospital in Oslo from her brief encounter with convicted felon Morten Borg.

Høiby and Borg were never cohabitants or in a formal relationship.

Mette-Marit has said of Marius: "Marius became a symbol of the unusual choice we made when we got married (...) he will not have a public role and is not a public figure."

A Norwegian commoner and single mother with a disadvantaged past, she was a controversial figure at the time of her engagement to Haakon in 2000.

Her first official appearance as the intended bride of the Crown Prince was at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony at Oslo City Hall on 10 December 2000, following the announcement of the couple's engagement on 1 December.

At the press conference, Haakon said that he and Mette-Marit had been together for about one year.

Haakon gave Mette-Marit the same engagement ring that his grandfather King Olav V and his father King Harald V had given to their fiancées.

She became Crown Princess of Norway upon her marriage in 2001.

The couple have two children, Ingrid Alexandra and Sverre Magnus, who are second and third in line to the Norwegian throne respectively.

Mette-Marit additionally has a son from a previous unmarried brief relationship with Norwegian convicted felon Morten Borg.

In 2012, she obtained a master's degree in executive management.

Most of her ancestors were cotters and small farmers.

When the engagement between Crown Prince Haakon and Mette-Marit was announced, public and media reaction was negative, with many Norwegians being "horrified" and feeling that the Crown Prince's choice of partner was questionable; her lack of education, previous relationships with convicted felons and her socialization in a milieu "where drugs were readily available" were often cited by critics.

In 2017 he moved to the United States to attend an unspecified college.

In October 2018, she was diagnosed with a form of pulmonary fibrosis.

She is being treated at Oslo University Hospital and has restricted her royal duties.

Mette-Marit Tjessem Høiby was born in Kristiansand in the southern part of Norway, the daughter of Sven O. Høiby, who had been unemployed for some time but who had previously worked as a small-scale advertiser and journalist for a local paper in his hometown of Kristiansand, and Marit Tjessem, a former bank clerk.

Her parents divorced, and her father later married professional stripper Renate Barsgård.

She has a sister and two older brothers, including Per Høiby.

In 2018 media reported that he had falsely portrayed himself as "prince", although he holds no title and is a commoner, not a royal.