A wedding is usually a joyous occasion, and a royal wedding is doubly so, but at this weekend's wedding of Norway's Princess Märtha Louise and her controversial self-proclaimed shaman partner, bisexual African-American Durek Verrett, there will be more than a few family members who wish she would say, "I don't want to."
Not that such disapproval would deter Märtha Louise, 52, the rebellious princess who did not choose her lover based on a noble bloodline. Instead, this is a marriage based on the bizarre idea that the lovers - who both claim mystical powers - met in a previous life in ancient Egypt.
It is the latest extraordinary and, for many, disturbing choice for the fourth in line to the throne of Norway, who calls herself a clairvoyant and from 2007 to 2018 ran an alternative therapy center dubbed the "angel school" because she claims she can promote healing by communicating with angels.
Crown Prince Harald and Crown Princess Sonja's eldest child, Märtha Louise, has often shocked her country with such statements. Perhaps in a strange way, she is the perfect match for Verrett, 49, who boasts that he realized he had shamanic powers at the age of three when he saw his dead ancestors in the room. He will make history as the first black man to marry into a modern European royal family.
However, the reaction to their 2023 engagement has been very hostile. "We get comments like, 'It's not going to last,'" Verrett reveals. He has even been accused, he says, of "casting spells on [Märtha Louise] to make her fall in love with me and [that] I do black magic," and people have made death threats on Instagram. Märtha Louise adds: "As a white person, I don't encounter racism every day, so I don't know what it's like. It's shocking."
Verrett admits that he occasionally plays on that "crazy shaman" reputation. "I'll call Martha up and say, 'So today I told everyone I'm a reptile,' and she'll say, 'Oh, here we go...'"
But many find it hard to see the humor in her marriage to a man accused of lying about his race, spreading dangerous conspiracy theories and abusing his ex-partner.
While Märtha Louise spent her childhood in the royal residences of Norway, Verrett grew up in the Bay Area of San Francisco. He has publicly claimed that he is the son of a wealthy architect, David, who had servants and a private jet.
However, his mother, Veruschka Urquhart, and his paternal aunt, opera singer Shirley Verrett, vehemently dispute that. They say David was in fact a builder who went bankrupt twice, while Urquhart told the magazine in an interview See and hear warned last year that her estranged son is a dangerous, lying manipulator who has "brainwashed" his royal bride.
Verrett responded angrily by sending his mother a letter urging her to quit her job, threatening her with a multimillion-dollar lawsuit and stating that she had not been invited to the wedding.
What is not in dispute is that Verrett has a criminal history. In 1991, he was sentenced to five years in prison for felony arson and trespassing after throwing a party in a vacant house that was set on fire. He was arrested again in 1993 and 2011 for crimes including fare evasion and threatening his Los Angeles landlord with murder and "black magic." In 2015, he was charged with assault after a domestic violence attack on his then-fiancée, massage therapist Hank Greenberg.
But most disturbing are Verrett's wild health claims. In his 2019 book Mind hacking which was withdrawn by publisher Cappelen Damm, he claims that children get cancer if they are unhappy, that chemotherapy is a scam and that women should buy his exercises to "clean" their vaginas because casual sex attracts subterranean spirits.
In 2022, Verrett sold a medallion that he promised would cure Covid until Norwegian authorities shut him down. He rails against 5G and the Illuminati, says he has risen from the dead, and that he knew the 9/11 attacks were coming but chose not to intervene. Verrett also claims that naughty children and suicidal people are possessed by evil spirits.
You might think this horrific statement would particularly frighten Märtha Louise, given that her first husband, writer Ari Behn, committed suicide, but she has been in a relationship and working with Verrett since May 2019. Although they believe they first met centuries ago, "I have memories of us in Egypt," Verrett said. "She was my queen and I was a pharaoh."
Märtha Louise stepped down as a senior member of the Norwegian royal family in November 2022, but senior figures have continued to criticize the union. In 2023, politician Ole Henrik Krat called Bjørkholt Verrett "an unscrupulous and dangerous charlatan", while many in the Norwegian media have called for Märtha Louise to be stripped of her "princess" title. She recently used the title and her royal monogram on a special wedding gin, but was forced to retract it after an uproar.
But that was just one element of this elaborate New Age event, which began Thursday with a meet and greet at Hotel 1904 in the Norwegian coastal town of Alesund. The couple wore matching, custom-made bubblegum pink outfits by Märtha Louise's brand Hest. The princess wore a heart-shaped belt buckle to symbolize, she said, that "love conquers all."
On Friday, guests were ferried to the four-star Union Hotel in Geiranger village (a UNESCO World Heritage site), overlooking waterfalls and mountains. A glamorous Latin-themed cocktail party with salsa dancing followed. The wedding ceremony will take place around 1pm on Saturday, followed by afternoon tea and then a gala dinner and party (the bar will be open until 3am). Finally, there will be a post-wedding brunch on Sunday, reportedly featuring performances by Stevie Wonder and the Black Eyed Peas.
The wedding party will include seven bridesmaids and seven groomsmen. The first to appear will likely be Martha Louise's daughters Maud Angelica, 21, Leah Isadora, 19, and Emma Tallulah, 15. Pastor Margit Lovise Holte will officiate, while the Reverend Michael Beckwith, a New Thought minister whose L.A. church has been attended by Oprah Winfrey and Meghan Markle's mother, Doria Ragland, will also take part.
Instead of the country's national broadcaster and news agency covering the wedding, as is customary for royal occasions, she and Verrett have struck lucrative deals with Netflix (which is making a documentary about them) and Hello! magazine. Guests must adhere to a social media ban - although Märtha Louise has already given details on her own Instagram.
The head of communications for the Royal House of Norway, Guri Varpe, has confirmed that the rest of the royal family (including Märtha Louise's parents, King Harald and Queen Sonja, and her brother Crown Prince Haakon, who are all staying aboard the royal yacht) will not be photographed or filmed, as that would be a nuisance to Netflix and Hello! unfair access.
But that decision may also reflect their serious reservations about this marriage. Although Märtha Louise tells The Telegraph that her parents "have grown to love Durek very much," she admits that this union is "extremely, terribly out of the box."
Other signs that this won't be, as Verrett put it, "just a typical wedding" include the dress code for the pre-wedding party, which - in a departure from royal protocol - is "sexy and cool." For the ceremony itself, women are asked to wear long ball gowns, but to avoid white, all black, all pink and gold, while men are encouraged to think "the Oscars red carpet."
The 350-person guest list includes celebrities and social media influencers, including American reality star Cynthia Bailey and body-positive model Margie Plus. Oscar winner and Goop founder Gwyneth Paltrow may also attend: she called Verrett a "soul brother" and he and Märtha Louise vacationed with the actress in the Hamptons in 2019.
Notably absent is 27-year-old Marius Borg Høiby, Crown Princess Mette-Marit's son from a previous relationship, who was arrested earlier this month on suspicion of physically assaulting a woman and vandalizing her apartment. He has admitted to being "in a stupor of alcohol and cocaine."
Swedish Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Carl Philip are confirmed to attend the wedding, along with Prince Constantijn and Princess Laurentien of the Netherlands, but many others are staying away. Isaksen speculated that foreign royals "are not so keen to be part of this circus."
But with such a colorful couple now at the heart of the establishment, this lavish wedding is just the beginning of a dangerous tightrope act for the Norwegian royal family. A recent poll showed that 36 percent of the public had a more negative opinion of them in the past year. The madman and the shaman could reduce a stately institution to a clown car.