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Friday, March 29, 2024

Norwegian plays part in royal drama

UPDATED: A Norwegian handball player admits she has played a role in the royal drama involving Swedish Princess Madeleine and her now-ex-fiancee Jonas Bergström. Their engagement was officially broken over the weekend.

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Tora Uppstrøm Berg, age 21, told Norwegian magazine Se og Hør last week that she had “intimate relations” with Bergström during an Easter holiday last year at the Swedish ski resort Åre.

Berg reportedly was paid NOK 12,500 for her story, and now regrets she told it. Her family told various Norwegian media outlets on Sunday that Berg was “naive” and hadn’t foreseen the consequences her admission would have.

Berg told Se og Hør that she met Bergström (shown in PicApp photo at right with Princess Madeleine at Nobel Prize festivities in December) outside a nightclub in Åre. He reportedly was on a guttetur (boys’ holiday) and he and Berg wound up back at his hotel.

Berg claims she had no idea who he was at the time. “If I’d known he had a girlfriend I never would have done anything like that,” said Berg of the fleeting affair. “I feel sorry for Madeleine who has an unfaithful fiancee. She deserves better.”

Berg’s story was published after weeks of speculation in Sweden over the status of the relationship between Princess Madeleine and Bergström. They became engaged late last summer but the two reportedly hadn’t been seen together since December. Sweden’s Queen Silvia confirmed last week that wedding plans have been postponed indefinitely.

On Saturday afternoon, the Swedish Royal Palace announced that the engagement between Madeleine and Bergström was broken. The two had “made a decision” to break their engagement, and the palace would make no further comment. Madeleine reportedly was seen at Stockholm’s airport at midday on Saturday, boarding a flight for New York.

The royal breakup has topped the news in Sweden but reportedly will allow Madeleine’s older sister, Crown Prince Victoria, to more easily move forward with preparations for her own wedding in June. Norway’s King Harald said he couldn’t comment on the breakup itself, but told Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) that “it was good the breakup came now and not after a wedding,” to avoid a royal divorce.

Berg, from Meråker i north-central Norway, played handball for Byåsen’s junior team and now is studying photography in Bournemouth, England. Newspaper Dagbladet reported that fellow students there described her as “flirtatious, extroverted and popular with the boys.”

Sweden continues to prepare for another royal wedding, meanwhile, that of Madeleine’s older sister, Crown Princess Victoria. She’ll marry her longtime sweetheart, Daniel Westling, in June after three days of official festivities that will be attended by several members of the Norwegian royal family.

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