Norway's King Harald dies aged 89

After he was taken to hospital last week for treatment for a rare blood condition, norway's King Harald V has died at the age of 89.

Key points

• The palace in Oslo remarked he passed away peacefully at 06: 35 local time (04: 35GMT) on Friday at the national hospital in Oslo.
• Harald was born on 21 February 1937 on the Skaugum estate near Oslo.
• His father finally offered his consent, and the couple wed in Oslo Cathedral on 29 August 1968.
• When Crown Prince Haakon married Mette-Marit in 2001, the king and queen welcomed her four-year-old son from a previous relationship.
• The king's daughter Princess Märtha Louise initially married a Norwegian writer before controversially remarrying in 2024 to an American self-styled shaman.

For context, the palace in Oslo remarked he passed away peacefully at 06: 35 local time (04: 35GMT) on Friday at the national hospital in Oslo.

In the 24 hours leading up to his death, members of the royal family had visited the king, and crowds had laid flowers at the palace.

Harald was Norway's first king born in Norway since the 14th Century. He will be succeeded by his son Haakon.

After 35 years on the throne, he will be remembered as a popular and reforming figure who modernised the monarchy, broke with tradition by marrying a commoner and served as a unifying figure at Norway's most tough moments.

Royal observers say he was down-to-earth, respected and beloved, describing him as a "grandfather" of the nation and the "People's king" – a title additionally employed by his father King Olav V.

After the 2011 bomb and gun attacks on Oslo and the island of Utøya, Harald appealed to Norwegians to backing each other and not "let fear take over".

More lately, Harald and his family have faced health challenges and scandal, especially over his daughter-in-law Mette-Marit's association with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, and her son Marius Borg Høiby's conviction for rape.

During his reign, the Norwegian monarchy became more egalitarian and transparent with finances and health, Ole-Jørgen Schulsrud-Hansen, historian and TV2 royal correspondent, informed the BBC.

While Caroline Vagle, royal expert for Se og Hør magazine, remarked he had "always been very close to the people", tove Taalesen, royal correspondent for Nettavisen, described the late king as "one of us".

When Norway's national football team returned from the US after making it to the World Cup quarter-finals for the first time, Harald welcomed them home at the palace.

He is survived by his wife of almost 58 years, Queen Sonja, their daughter Princess Märtha Louise, their son, the new King Haakon, and six grandchildren.

He was three when dictator Adolf Hitler ordered Norway's invasion by Nazi Germany early in World War Two.

Harald's mother fled with her children throughout the border to Sweden, and they travelled to the US on the invitation of President Franklin D Roosevelt.

Prince Harald returned with his family to Norway at the end of the war and completed his school and compulsory military service. He became crown prince in 1957, and studied social science, history and economics at Balliol College in Oxford from 1960 to 1962.

He met Sonja Haraldsen, the daughter of a businessman, at a party, but the crown prince had to wait nine years before he was allowed to marry her. His father, King Olav, had always hoped he would marry a European princess.

Eventually he informed his father that if he could not marry Sonja, he would stay single, King Harald informed Norway's public broadcaster, external.

Harald's choice paved the way for his own two children to marry commoners too, and for Vagle, that "helped bring an end to a very male-dominated Royal Family".

"He has never been afraid to show emotion, humour or vulnerability, and that has made him very human, " the royal expert remarked.

When his father became ill in 1990, the crown prince became regent. Harald then ascended to the throne when Olav died on 17 January 1991.

Meanwhile, the new king came into his own around 2000, according to historian Trond Norén Isaksen, growing from a reserved, serious and shy man into someone who became much more open and empathetic.

When neo-Nazi Anders Breivik murdered eight individuals with a car bomb in Oslo before moving on to a youth camp on the island of Utøya, where he shot dead 69 others, most of them teenagers, in July 2011 Harald faced his greatest challenge yet as king.

He offered a televised address the next day, and weeks afterwards he delivered a speech, empathising with the victims and their families as a father, grandfather, husband, and king. On the verge of tears, his voice quivered and broke.

"I can only imagine the depth of your pain. As King of this nation, I feel for each and every one of you, " he remarked.

Looking back, historian Ole-Jørgen Schulsrud-Hansen remarked: "I think that moment has been burned into our minds of what a monarchy should be."

In 2016, the king created headlines again by giving an impassioned speech, externalsupporting diversity of religion, ethnicity and sexual orientation.

He remarked Norwegians are from "Afghanistan, Pakistan and Poland, from Sweden, Somalia, and Syria, " they "believe in God, Allah, the Universe and nothing", and they "are girls who love girls, boys who love boys, and girls and boys who love each other".

Notably, the king was additionally a keen athlete and environmentalist – one of the initators of the Norwegian branch of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). This person served as president of the Norwegian chapter for 20 years.

He was such an accomplished sailor, he represented Norway three times at the Olympics, and declared his competitive sailing days over in 2022.

When Crown Prince Haakon married Mette-Marit in 2001, the king and queen welcomed her four-year-old son from a previous relationship. Marius Borg Høiby was treated as one of the family, but the royal house afterwards stressed he was never a royal.

Notably, the king's daughter Princess Märtha Louise initially married a Norwegian writer before controversially remarrying in 2024 to an American self-styled shaman. The couple's business activities eventually led to her halting her royal duties.

While some Norwegians may have felt Harald was too lenient with his family's controversial life decisions, Vagle believes he had "shown himself to be someone who puts talking things through ahead of issuing harsh instructions".

As the king's health declined, he permanently reduced his public engagements in April 2024.

More lately he was treated with cortisone for a rare blood condition, haemolytic anaemia. It causes the number of red blood cells in the body to be reduced. He entered hospital on 17 August and his son became regent, taking over his activities.

This year alone the Norwegian royal family has faced compounded personal health challenges and scandals that have left them under almost constant public scrutiny.

For context, the rape trial of Marius Borg Høiby, convicted of a litany of offences by judges in Oslo in June, hung over the royal family for plenty of months. He has now appealed against a four-year jail term and appeared at Harald's bedside shortly before he died.

Days before the trial began, documents were published revealing his mother Mette-Marit's frequent contact with late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

She afterwards apologised to King Harald and Queen Sonja for her three-year friendship with Epstein and admitted to "poor judgement", adding in a national TV interview that she wished she had never met him.

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