King Harald V, Norway’s reform-minded head of state, dies at 89

OSLO, Norway – Norway‘s King Harald, a reformer who emerged from the shadow of his well-loved, extrovert father over more than three decades on the throne, died on Friday, August 28, at the age of 89, the royal palace said, at a time of multiple crises for the Norwegian royal family.

“King Harald passed away peacefully at Oslo University Hospital on Friday 28 August, 0635 (local time, 0435 GMT),” the royal palace said on its website.

Harald, who was Europe’s oldest living monarch, was taken to hospital on August 17. The palace said he was being treated for a bacterial infection in his blood.

In 2024, he had been hospitalized for an infection while on holiday in Malaysia and received a temporary pacemaker at a hospital there. He was flown back home by the Norwegian armed forces and later fitted with a permanent device.

That same year, Harald, Norway’s ceremonial head of state since 1991, said he would reduce the number of official engagements in which he took part but ruled out abdication, insisting that his oath as king was for life.

Multiple challenges

Harald’s death comes at a tumultuous time for the royal family.

Crown Princess Mette-Marit, married to Harald’s son Crown Prince Haakon, is facing intense scrutiny for her friendship with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, a relationship for which she has apologized.

Her son Marius Hoiby, born from a relationship predating her marriage to Haakon, was found guilty in June of ​two out of four counts of rape and one count of domestic violence and sentenced to four years in prison after a seven-week trial. Both he and the prosecution have appealed the sentence.

Two days after Marius was convicted, the palace said Mette-Marit had undergone a successful lung transplant, without specifying when the procedure took place.

After several weeks of recovery in hospital, she returned home and celebrated her silver wedding anniversary with Haakon in August.

Support for the monarchy dropped to 60% in February 2026, from 70% the previous month, according to a Norstat poll published by public broadcaster NRK, rising slightly to 64% in May.

Harald had constantly remained popular with Norwegians. According to the February poll, he was the royal who best represented the Norwegian royal family, with a note of 9.2, on a scale of 1 to 10.

A descendant of Queen Victoria

A great-great-grandchild of Britain’s Queen Victoria, Harald acceded to the throne in 1991 and slowly introduced modern touches that brought a ceremonial post seen mainly as a symbol of national independence into the 21st century.

The popular king played a crucial role comforting the nation in times of mourning.

When far-right, anti-Islam fanatic Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people in 2011 in Oslo and on Utoeya island, the king consoled the nation with a powerful televised speech. His voice trembling with emotion, he said that “freedom is stronger than fear.”

After floods, storms and other disasters, he would travel to the scene wearing rubber boots and a well-worn jacket to meet those who had lost homes or loved ones.

Late in life he spoke up for tolerance, declaring in a 2016 speech that Norwegians could have many backgrounds, beliefs and sexual orientations.

In November 2005, Harald and his wife, Sonja Haraldsen, invited 550 Norwegians to a ball to celebrate the centenary of the country’s independence from Sweden.

Harald said in an interview at the time that Europe’s royal families should not be tempted to reverse moves towards openness and retreat to their palace towers.

“If you’ve opened the gate it’s very difficult to close it again,” he told Reuters. “I’m not sure I’d want to close it. So far so good, as far as I’m concerned.”

Like his father Olav, Harald was a sports and automotive enthusiast and often drove his own car, particularly to informal events.

A sailor, he captained his boat to win a world championship title and competed in several Olympics, but failed to repeat his father’s feat of winning Olympic gold.

Harald also took a great interest in the preservation of nature. He realised a lifelong dream when, aged 76, he spent four days deep in the Amazon jungle of Brazil, living with the Yanomami people and sleeping in a hammock.

Birth and reign

Harald’s birth on February 21, 1937, was cause for national celebration — he was the first royal heir to be born in Norway in almost 570 years. Danish and Swedish monarchs had ruled over the Scandinavian nation for centuries, until 1905.

Just three years after Harald was born, Nazi Germany invaded the country. King Haakon and then-Crown Prince Olav fled to Britain, where they led Norway’s government-in-exile, while the 3-year-old Harald went with his mother, Crown Princess Märtha, to neutral Sweden, then to the United States.

After living briefly at the White House, and then for five years in Bethesda, Maryland, Harald, his older sisters Ragnhild and Astrid and their mother met frequently with US President Franklin D. Roosevelt, whom Harald years later described as like a grandfather.

When he returned to Norway after the war ended in 1945, Harald attended state schools rather than the private lessons his father had received.

His marriage in 1968 to a commoner broke with tradition and followed a nine-year stand-off with his father that ended only after Harald threatened never to marry rather than give up Sonja.

Later years

In 1998, the king faced an unprecedented wave of public criticism over press reports that he had accepted a 4-million-crown ($400,000) yacht from a group of industrialists as a birthday present, and that palace repairs had cost the government 500 million crowns.

Around the same time, his former deputy private secretary suggested that Harald should abdicate at the egalitarian country’s normal retirement age of 67.

Opinion polls gave the king firm backing to stay on for life, however, and the criticism subsided. A year later, in another Reuters interview, Harald joked that he would remain on the throne for life unless he went mad.

“There is no tradition in Norway for that (abdication). But you never know. If you go completely bonkers,” he said. Queen Sonja laughed and said: “But who will ever tell you that?”

Harald’s son Haakon, 53, will be Norway’s fourth king since the country gained independence from Sweden in 1905, with Mette-Marit, also aged 53, as his queen. – Rappler.com