Princess who married 'shaman who rose from the dead', says pregnancy photos are deepfakes

Deepfake images of Norway’s Princess Märtha Louise with a baby bump have been removed from the internet. She slammed those behind the fake photos, one of which showed the 55-year-old with her husband, American shaman Durek Verrett, holding a sonogram. The images were posted on two Facebook sites last week, leading to rumours that the princess was expecting her first child with Verrett, whom she married on August 31, 2024.

One of the pages was in Norwegian, and the other was in German. Both Facebook accounts have been removed as Meta found them in breach of guidelines on coordinated inauthentic behaviour.

After the photos started circulating online, Märtha Louise issued a statement, clarifying that the photos were fake. "We are aware that false claims and manipulated images of Princess Märtha Louise are being spread on social media, and this is something we take seriously and are following up on,” her manager, Carina Scheele Carlsen, told Norwegian news outlet TV 2. The outlet also carried screenshots of the fake photos before the pages were removed.

Also Read: Norway princess to marry shaman who claims he died and came back to life

Controversial royal couple

Princess Märtha Louise and her husband have continued to attract controversy since their wedding. Louise and the self-proclaimed "sixth-generation shaman" Durek Verrett have been under public scrutiny over royal protocol disputes and media backlash in Norway and internationally. Verrett sold $222 worth of medallions called "Spirit Optimizers," during the COVID-19 pandemic, claiming they helped ward off the virus.

Screenshot of the AI-generated photos and the Facebook page

Norwegian princess' husband claimed to have risen from the dead

He even bizarrely claimed that he had risen from death. In 2002, Verrett said that he died of renal failure and came back to life. He said that this put him on the path to become a shaman. He also received flak for saying that Martha Louise's ex-husband, who died by suicide in 2019, contacted him from beyond the grave.

Norway’s royal family was targeted in a similar AI attack in June this year. AI-generated photos showed then-Crown Princess Mette-Marit in hospital after lung transplant. Her husband, the now-King Haakon and their daughter, Crown Princess Ingrid Alexandra, were also shown comforting her.