Princess’s secret trip to care for gay employee’s babies

Published on 04/12/2012 00:00

Norway’s Crown Princess secretly travelled to India to care for twins born to the surrogate mother of a gay palace employee unable to get a travel visa.

Armed with a diplomatic passport that granted her immediate access, Princess Mette-Marit jumped on a plane in late October when the employee, who is also a friend, and his husband were unable to travel to care for their newborns.

“For me, this is about two babies lying alone in a New Delhi hospital,” the future queen said. “I was able to travel and wanted to do what I could.”

She did not alert the Indian authorities and spent several days with the babies at the Manav Medicare Centre, where staff assumed the wife of Norway’s Crown Prince Haakon was a nanny.

A relative of the two fathers eventually took over from the princess and the men received a visa in November, when they took the babies back to Norway.