Norway's Crown Princess Mette-Marit said she was "manipulated" by convicted US sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, in an interview broadcast on Friday in which she sought to explain their close relationship.
A commoner who married Crown Prince Haakon in 2001, Mette-Marit's name appears in new Epstein documents released by the US Department of Justice earlier this year.
The files revealed an unexpectedly close friendship between the pair and raised questions in Norway about whether Mette-Marit can become queen.
"Of course I wish I had never met him," she told public broadcaster NRK during the roughly 20-minute interview.
"It is extremely important for me to acknowledge that I did not look into his past more carefully, and also to acknowledge that I was manipulated and deceived to such an extent," she said.
She also sought to squash speculation about the nature of her relationship to Epstein, who pleaded guilty in 2008 to soliciting a minor for prostitution and died in 2019 while awaiting trial for sex trafficking.
"It was a friendly relationship: above all, he was a friend to me. But if your question is whether the relationship had another nature, the answer is no," she said.
Mette-Marit has previously said that she deeply regretted her relationship with the disgraced financier.
The revelations about Epstein have damaged her reputation, at a time when she is dealing with a trial of her 29-year-old son from a relationship before she married the crown prince.
Marius Borg Hoiby faces 38 charges, including raping four women and assaulting ex-girlfriends, and faces up to 16 years in prison.
