Key Takeaways
- Princess Märtha Louise and husband Durek Verrett are seeking more than $80 million in a Los Angeles defamation lawsuit against former friends, lovers, associates, and a relative.
- The couple claims the defendants weaponized private messages and insider access in a coordinated smear campaign against them and Verrett’s company, Ohana.
- The case comes amid Verrett’s kidney-transplant recovery, Märtha Louise’s grief after King Harald V’s death, and wider turmoil surrounding Norway’s royal family.
Norway’s royal family is barely through one crisis, and another is already headed to court. Less than two months after King Harald V died, his daughter Princess Märtha Louise and her self-described shaman husband, Durek Verrett, are demanding more than $80 million from former friends, lovers, business associates and at least one relative they accuse of waging a public smear campaign against them.
According to The Guardian, the controversial couple filed a defamation lawsuit in Los Angeles County Superior Court claiming people once welcomed into their inner circle repaid that access with a “calculated betrayal of trust.”
The complaint claims the defendants used private messages, disputed accusations, and purported insider knowledge in a “coordinated series of devastating public attacks” against Märtha Louise, Verrett, and his company, Ohana. The damages sought across the claims top $80 million.
These were not random critics sniping at the couple from a distance, according to the lawsuit. The defendants allegedly had access to Verrett’s private relationships, family matters, business operations and client affairs through personal or professional ties.
The couple claims that access was later “weaponized” against them as the alleged conduct escalated throughout 2025 and 2026. Two hearings are scheduled for December.
“Our clients’ reputations have been judged by the public for years,” attorney Richard Roth said. “Now the facts will be tested in a court of law.”
The couple acknowledged the loaded timing of the case, citing both Verrett’s kidney failure and recent transplant and Märtha Louise’s grief following her father’s death. Their attorneys said legal deadlines left them little choice but to file while they otherwise would have been focused on “health, family, grief, and recovery.”
Of course, Märtha Louise and Verrett have never needed much help generating headlines. The princess has claimed clairvoyant abilities and previously co-founded a school that taught students how to communicate with angels and spirits.
For his part, Verrett calls himself a sixth-generation shaman and has promoted alternative health products, including a medallion he said helped him recover from illness.
Märtha Louise stepped away from official royal duties in 2022, but kept her title—a compromise that did little to quiet accusations that she was using her royal connection to sell a spiritual lifestyle brand.
The couple’s 2024 wedding only made that divide harder to ignore. They sold exclusive photo rights rather than granting traditional access to Norwegian media, then put their relationship onscreen in the Netflix documentary Rebel Royals: An Unlikely Love Story.
Polling later showed widespread support in Norway for stripping Märtha Louise of her princess title. She remains third in line to the throne, although her brother became King Haakon VIII following Harald’s death at 89 on Aug. 28.
The lawsuit now lands in the middle of a brutal stretch for the House of Glücksburg. Queen Mette-Marit has faced backlash over her past correspondence with Jeffrey Epstein, while her son, Marius Borg Høiby, is appealing a four-year prison sentence after being convicted on multiple charges, including rape.
