Crown Princess Mette-Marit at the Royal Palace in Oslo, Norway, on 10 April 2026.
- Norway’s Crown Princess Mette-Marit has been placed on a lung transplant waiting list after her incurable pulmonary fibrosis deteriorated significantly over the past six months.
- She was diagnosed with the rare disease in 2018, and doctors now report her lung function has declined considerably in recent months.
- The princess will suspend all official duties while awaiting a transplant.
Norway’s Crown Princess Mette-Marit, who suffers from an incurable lung disease, has been placed on a waiting list for a lung transplant, ushering in a period of great uncertainty regarding her health.
Mette-Marit, 52, was diagnosed in 2018 with a rare form of pulmonary fibrosis that causes breathing difficulties, which has repeatedly forced her to take sick leave or scale back her official duties.
Her condition has deteriorated significantly over the past six months, Are Holm, a lung specialist at the Oslo University Hospital Rikshospitalet, told a press conference Friday afternoon.
“We can see that there has been a significant increase in scar tissue in her lungs over the past year. And lung function tests show that her lung function has declined considerably in the last three months alone,” Holm told reporters.
READ | ‘Gravely ill’: Norway’s Crown Princess Mette-Marit’s health worsens amid son’s court case
Scarring of the lungs, known as pulmonary fibrosis, occurs when the alveoli (tiny air sacs) and the tissue between them become damaged and thickened, stiffening the lung and thereby hindering the passage of oxygen into the blood.
“This is dangerous,” Holm said.
This is why she was “being placed on the waiting list for a lung transplant”, he added.
To be placed on the list, one must be sick enough – it is reserved for patients who are believed to have only about a year to live without a transplant – but still in sufficiently good condition to handle such a major procedure and recover.
No guarantee
For an operation to go ahead, a compatible donor must first be found, meaning a lung of the right size and blood type to avoid organ rejection, and the patient must be the sickest one on the list.
There is therefore no guarantee that Mette-Marit will be given priority, the doctor noted, but added that the waiting time for a lung transplant had become significantly shorter in recent months.
While awaiting the operation, the crown princess will not be able to carry out her official duties, the palace said in a statement, adding that her ailing health would also affect the duties and activities of the crown prince and the rest of her family.
The palace announced already in December that the crown princess might need a lung transplant.
The couple’s silver wedding anniversary celebration, scheduled for August 2026, will be postponed, and they will not be able to attend the Swedish royal couple’s golden wedding anniversary in Stockholm on 13 June, the palace said.
The princess’s husband, Crown Prince Haakon, recently cut short a trip to Japan to be with his wife.
Their daughter, Princess Ingrid Alexandra, also decided to interrupt her social sciences studies at the University of Sydney to join her mother in Norway and plans to continue her studies in Oslo throughout the autumn.
The crown princess has recently appeared in public with a breathing tube connected to an oxygen device carried by a palace employee.
Mette-Marit, who married Haakon in 2001, has had a difficult few months in the spotlight.
Documents were released in January revealing her friendship and frequent contact with convicted US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein between 2011 and 2014.
In addition, her son from a previous relationship, Marius Borg Høiby, went on trial earlier this year for rape, which he denies.
The verdict in his trial is due on 15 June.
Høiby had requested to be released, awaiting the verdict, because of his mother’s health, his lawyer Petar Sekulic told Norwegian media on Friday.
Norwegian police rejected the request, and the court will decide.
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‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.news24.com ’
