OSLO, Norway (AP) — Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway has undergone a successful lung transplant at a hospital in Oslo, the country's royal house said Wednesday.
The 52-year-old was diagnosed in 2018 with pulmonary fibrosis, a progressive disease that damages and scars lung tissue. It can cause serious breathing problems, and there is no known cure.
Earlier this month, the royal house announced that she had been placed on a lung transplant list. On Wednesday, it said in a statement that she had received a transplant at the Rikshospitalet in Oslo.
The head of the hospital's pulmonary department, Are Holm, said in the statement that “we are very pleased that everything has gone well so far.”
Like other transplant recipients, she will remain in the hospital for “several weeks,” Holm said. He added that “this is standard procedure to adjust medications, manage any complications and conduct rehabilitation.”
The royal house said Crown Prince Haakon, the heir to the Norwegian throne, will “adjust his schedule” to be with his wife during that period. It said that it plans its next update on her health when she is discharged from the hospital.
Mette-Marit's condition worsened over recent months, coinciding with a challenging period for her on other fronts.
Her eldest son, Marius Borg Høiby, was sentenced to four years in prison on Monday after being convicted of two counts of rape, which he denied, among other offenses. Høiby’s lawyers said he will appeal convictions for rape and domestic abuse.
Høiby is Mette-Marit's son from a previous relationship and has no royal titles or official duties. But his high-profile six-week trial cast a shadow over the royal family.
While the trial played out, Mette-Marit separately faced renewed scrutiny over her connections with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. That raised questions over her judgment, though she is not accused of any wrongdoing.
She apologized in February for the situation she put the royal family in, part of a broader apology for all those she had “disappointed.” In a television interview in March, she said she was manipulated and deceived by Epstein and felt unsafe during a 2013 encounter with him at his Palm Beach, Florida, mansion.
