Norway’s royal palace confirms Epstein emails permanently deleted

The Norwegian royal palace has confirmed that emails exchanged between Crown Princess Mette-Marit and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein cannot be recovered, following an investigation by their service provider.

In a statement to newspaper Aftenposten, communications advisor Simen Løvberg Sund said technical assessments had determined the account and its contents were irretrievable. “We have received confirmation from the provider that recovery is not possible,” Sund wrote on Thursday.

The account in question was a private ISP-linked address—common in the early 2000s when internet providers routinely assigned personal email accounts to subscribers. While the palace initially confirmed in February that the account was no longer active, they now state that attempts to restore it have failed.

IT expert: Recovery “impossible” after 15 years

Cybersecurity specialist Per Thorsheim told Dagbladet he found the palace’s explanation credible. “Providers like Broadpark/NextGen certainly took backups at the time, but deleted accounts gradually disappear from backup systems—typically within weeks or months,” he said.

Thorsheim estimated that even under commercial agreements, data retention would not exceed six months. “Recovering this after 15 years? Impossible,” he said, adding that prolonged storage would raise legal concerns under data protection laws.

The palace has not disclosed when or why the account was originally deleted. The emails first surfaced in leaked documents this winter, including a 2011 message from Mette-Marit to Epstein stating, “I googled you after your last email. I agree, it didn’t look good. :)”

In a March interview with NRK, the crown princess said she wished she had access to the full correspondence, adding, “I don’t remember” what prompted the remark.

Earlier investigations by Dagbladet identified potential password hashes linked to the account, but experts had already urged its deletion if not done previously.