Norwegian princess to marry self-professed shaman from California
STAVANGER, Norway — The Norwegian king’s eldest child, Princess Martha Louise, will marry her Hollywood partner, the self-professed shaman Durek Verrett, next summer, the couple announced Wednesday.
King Harald V said in a statement that his family was “delighted to welcome” Verrett, who is from California and claims to be a sixth-generation shaman. The Norwegian princess can trace her ancestry back to Britain’s Queen Victoria.
The couple, who toured the country in 2019 as “the princess and the shaman,” have created waves in Norway with their alternative beliefs.
For the last several years, Martha Louise, 51, has said she can talk with angels, while Verrett, 48, claims that he communicates with a broad range of spirits, wields ancient medicine and has a medallion that helps ward off heavy energies, spells and darkness.
For the record:
8:39 p.m. Sept. 14, 2023A previous version of this article included wrong announced wedding date. It is Aug. 31, 2024, not Aug. 24.
The wedding will take place on Aug. 31 in Geiranger, prized for its typical Norwegian scenery among mountains and fjords. Geiranger is 135 miles north of Bergen, Norway’s second-largest city.
Shaman Durk is introducing the world to shamanism: The philosophy of using connection and spiritual wisdom as a tool to help solve the planet’s problems is catching on with a younger generation.
The VG newspaper, one of Norway’s biggest, said that the wedding would be privately paid for.
“We are incredibly happy to be able to celebrate our love in Geiranger’s beautiful surroundings. It means a lot to us to gather our loved ones in a place that is so rich in history and spectacular nature. Geiranger is the perfect place to embrace our love,” the couple said in a statement.
The state broadcaster NRK said that Verrett will move to Norway. And while he will join the royal family, he won’t have a title.
Although Princess Martha Louise is the first child of King Harald V, her brother, Crown Prince Haakon, who is two years younger than she is, will succeed their father as king.
The Norwegian Constitution was altered in 1990 to allow the firstborn child, regardless of gender, to take precedence in the line of succession. However, it wasn’t done retroactively, meaning that Haakon remains first in line to the throne. Haakon’s oldest child, Princess Ingrid Alexandra, will one day ascend the Norwegian throne.
Jan M. Olsen contributed to this report from Copenhagen.
Sign up for Essential California
The most important California stories and recommendations in your inbox every morning.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
