Who is Durek Verrett, the self-proclaimed shaman who is about to marry Princess Martha Louise?

Published on 17/10/2022 at 12:24
Reading time: 4 mins

Eldest daughter of the Norwegian royal couple, Märtha Louise, 51, has decided to start a new life with Durek Verrett, a popular spiritual guide in Hollywood, four years her junior. With King Harald’s blessing, the princess and her seducer announced their engagement in June. But the romance goes badly in the kingdom. This atypical couple struggles to captivate Norway.

In question: the statements of Durek Verrett who presents himself as a “
sixth generation shaman with stars like Gwyneth Paltrow and Antonio Banderas among its followers.

Hairless face and shaved head, the African-American suggests in his book “Spirit hacking” that cancer is a choice, offers exercises to erase the vaginal “imprint” of women who have had multiple sexual partners, and sells for 222 dollars a medallion, the “Spirit Optimizer”, which would have helped him to overcome the Covid.

Something to raise eyebrows in a Norwegian society little focused on beliefs and superstitions. “
He’s an impostor, a charlatan and a crook “says the columnist and humorist writer, Dagfinn Nordbø.

Accusations of racism

If he assures that he understands that his positions can be disconcerting, the shaman also and above all considers himself a victim of racism – in an echo of the treatment of which actress Meghan Markle had claimed to be a victim within the British royal family.

“
White people are writing all this hate and death threats to us (…) because they don’t want a black man in the royal family “, he said in an intervention on Instagram on June 9. At his side, Märtha Louise confided that she had been “
really shocked ” to have to “
first hand how (…) people of color are treated “.

The former conservative mayor of Oslo, Fabian Stang, is one of the few voices to come to the rescue of the couple.

“
Many think like me that selling medallions that bring health goes beyond the limits (…) but it is strange that so many who hate Durek had nothing against the man from Snåsa”, a famous local healer who died in 2021, he wrote on Facebook. “
Shouldn’t we in 2022 be able to welcome Durek with open arms and invite him to a sharp debate on the limits between science and bluffing? », he concluded.

But on the merits, nothing helps: several associations of health professionals have decided to do without the patronage of the princess because of the pronounced penchant of the chosen one of her heart for alternative medicine. If it is not in the national DNA to call for a broken engagement, more than half of Norwegians want Märtha Louise to renounce her title of princess, according to recent polls.

“Crisis meetings” within the royal family

Fourth in the order of succession – the rule of primogeniture, without distinction of sex, was not yet in force at her birth –, the fifty-something had made a cross in 2002 on the predicate of “Royal Highness” and s was committed in 2019 to no longer use her princess status for commercial purposes.

She herself is accustomed to controversy since this proponent of alternative therapies claims to be able to communicate with angels, a gift she has tried to share – and monetize – through courses and books. Her first husband, Ari Behn, was a colorful writer who already clashed within the royal family and with whom she had three daughters. He committed suicide in 2019, three years after their divorce.

“
The royal family must be unifying and therefore protected from controversy. The problem is that Märtha Louise and Durek Verrett are just the opposite: controversial and divisive with a suspicion of quackery. “, deciphers for AFP the historian Trond Norén Isaksen. “
Most Norwegians lament that money can be made on what they consider to be princess stamped rubbish he says.

According to the gossip press, King Harald, Märtha Louise and her brother, Crown Prince Haakon, held “
crisis meetings to ponder whether the princess would retain her title. For the time being, the sovereign has said very little about his future son-in-law, just evoking a “cultural collision”.

“
Something must be done », underlines Mr. Norén Isaksen. “
The royal couple must reconcile two imperatives, that of parents who want to see their children live happily and that linked to the task with which they are invested, namely to protect the crown so that it continues to shine for another thousand years. “.

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