OSLO: Mette-Marit was 25, an unmarried single mother and a commoner when she met Norway's then Crown Prince Haakon at the Quart music festival in her home city of Kristiansand in 1999."I just looked at her. She was like a light," Haakon - who became king on Friday (Aug 28) - wrote in his autobiography.They managed to date in secret for a few months before the news leaked."What has happened between Haakon and I has happened between two normal people," Mette-Marit told journalists, pushing back at early attempts to portray her as a real-life Cinderella.
The media also explored more negative angles, pressing her for details of her lifestyle when she was part of Norway's house music scene and questioning the propriety of someone with such a background entering the royal family.Haakon and his father King Harald, who had also married a commoner, stood by her. But it was just the first in a series of deeply bruising clashes between her private and public life."The discomfort from that year is still with me. To feel hunted is an overwhelming feeling," she was quoted as saying in Haakon's book. "I can promise you, there is nothing romantic about being washed clean of your sins in full public view. It is terrible."
