This article is a translation of an article originally published in Norwegian.
The siblings say they are convinced their mother is doing the interviews for payment.
– How can a mother do such a thing? And who can make a mother do something like that, asks Angelina (50).
– You know, my mother is 80 years old.
She looks at her half-brother Brandon Clarke (42). They meet VG in New York to talk about how they feel their family has been torn apart.
– What was your reaction to the first article?
– I went to the bathroom and threw up because I was sick to my stomach, Angelina replies.
There's also something the siblings don't know:
- The Se og Hør journalist who stands as the author of these articles was for many years a close friend of Princess Märtha Louise's ex-husband, the writer and painter Ari Behn.
- Durek's mother is under contract with Se og Hør.
- Another person who has been interviewed about Durek tells VG that the Se og Hør journalist expressed to have a personal agenda in the matter.
- After Ari Behn's death, one of his friends, American Taro Gold, started a private investigation of Durek Verrett.
The result of the investigation, a 124-page report, was tried to be disseminated to people in and around the royal family. The aim was to warn against the controversial shaman.
– Everything I did, I did out of love, Taro Gold tells VG today.
Editor-in-chief Ulf «Uffe» André Andersen says that Se og Hør’s «only agenda» is to have the best journalism about the royal family.
He states:
– It is entirely sought to put our reporter's relationship with Ari Behn in the context of the coverage of Durek.
In the end of this summer, the shaman is going to marry the princess who all her life has felt hounded by the press.
September 1978
BORN
INTO THE
MAGAZINES
Se og Hør have been preoccupied with
Märtha as long as the magazine has
existed. On the first cover there is a
picture of the seven-year-old princess.
Even as a teenager, Märtha Louise was convinced that people at school exchanged information about her for money:
– We could never talk to people properly. Because we didn’t know who we could trust. It was a huge insecurity, Princess Märtha tells VG.
Front pages about the royal family are among the best sellers, according to Se og Hør's editor-in-chief.
With princes and princesses about to become adults, the king's illness and an upcoming wedding between Märtha and Durek, there are up-and-coming times for content about the royal family.
Around the turn of the millennium, when both of the King's children married, was the last time interest was on a wave peak. No one went further than Se og Hør in pursuit of cover cases:
Ari Behn and Märtha Louise went on their honeymoon with a suitcase full of cash. They were sure their card usage was leaked to Se og Hør. A friend of Behn sold the details of his bachelor party to the magazine for 20,000 Norwegian kroner.
Se og Hør journalist Håvard Melnæs befriended Crown Princess Mette-Marit's father, Sven O. Høiby. Melnæs operated in a dual role, where he paid the friend for interviews and information.
Then, in 2007, Melnæs burned all the bridges of Se og Hør when he laid bare their working methods in the book «En helt vanlig dag på jobben» translated to «An Ordinary Day at Work».
Becoming friends with celebrity sources was something the leaders at Se og Hør encouraged, he recounted. The book described large money payments to celebrities and sources, and payments to sources at banks and airlines who then broke the law by leaking confidential information.
The following police investigation into bank leaks hit a dead end. Se og Hør was never investigated but received a multi-million tax claim for the ways in which they camouflaged payments to celebrities and sources, according to the newspaper Dagens Næringsliv. The rules on payment were tightened in:
Today, the main rule in Norway is that the press should not pay sources, because it can cause people to do or say things they would not otherwise do.
Back in New York, 15 years later. In the interview with VG, Durek Verrett's half-brother Brandon tells about his growing suspicion towards their mother.
Ahead of the first article in Se og Hør, he received a voice message from his mother.
– She told me that she had found work doing housekeeping, says Brandon Clarke.
The mother, who is 80 years old, has barely been in a job since the 1980s, says her son.
– It didn't make sense to me, he says.
And adds:
– No sooner she had left that message, I learned about the piece that ran in Se og Hør.
He says he confronted his mother with the suspicion that she was being paid.
– She denied it, but I didn't believe her.
The 2000s
THE FRIEND
FROM THE
GOSSIP-
PRESS
Ari Behn went against the weekly
papers several times. But it exists
a lesser known side of the story:
Behn and some of the journalists
from the magazines became friends.
One in particular.
Reporter Lars Gautneb and Ari Behn hit it off at their first meeting in the early 2000s, according to a text Gautneb later wrote.
At that time, Gautneb worked for the Se og Hør competitor Her og Nå.
Behn and Gautneb travelled together to places like Monaco, Sognefjorden, Bergen and Hemsedal, according to social media posts and descriptions Gautneb himself has made. Gautneb has described the friendship as «close and good.»
Märtha Louise says she was unaware of how early the friendship between Gautneb and Behn started.
– I didn't know that, she says.
When VG in 2014 interviewed Ari Behn about his return from London to Norway, Gautneb was involved in facilitating the interview. And the interview itself took place at home in his garden in Holmenkollen.
In those years, Behn had no official manager. Gautneb, among others, helped Behn with his art. Behn also got a writing job for a magazine made by a company Gautneb was a co-owner of.
In 2015, Gautneb announced transition to Se og Hør. By then, he had become «one of the best celebrity reporters in the country», one who delivered front-page coverage. He himself almost always stayed in the background.
He is, for example, the silent part of the duo that had the idea for the NRK tv success «Exit».
– For all the years I have lived an anonymous and comfortable life, I want to continue with that, he said when Dagsavisen wanted to interview him about the success of «Exit».
While Märtha Louise and Ari Behn were married, Behn appeared to a small extent in Se og Hør.
That was going to change.
The 2000s
LOVE
AND DEATH
FOR SALE
In 2016, Märtha Louise and Ari Behn
divorced. Christmas the following year
an exclusive interview at Ari Behn’s
home was the cover story in Se og Hør.
When Behn got together with his new girlfriend, he struck a deal to take part in one of the weekly tabloids' ploys: fake paparazzi.
It involves taking pictures of the celebrity looking like they were taken in hiding. This allows the celebrity to participate and get paid, while making the pictures more dramatic, and the reader believes that the issue has been made possible by the fact that the weekly magazine has been lying in wait in the bushes.
In the NRK podcast «Ari», Ebba Rysst Heilmann (39), who was girlfriend with Behn, told the story:
– Then he talks to a friend who works in Se og Hør. And then the suggestion comes up that we should take some sneak shots.
In the years following his divorce from Märtha, Behn appeared in several similar articles.
– He had a very good relationship with Se og Hør. He had some contacts there, who were also very good friends of him. I experienced that they took great care of him in everything. And what was decided, they decided together, Heilmann explains in the podcast.
Behn was open about how in these years he gradually became more marked by physical and mental ailments. His friends in Se og Hør were among those who supported him.
In the last time he lived, Behn moved into the children's room at the home of Se og Hør journalist Lars Gautneb. Behn's mother, Marianne, describes in the book «Min Ari» how «his friends Lars and Niklas» took her son on a mountain hike in November 2019.
On Christmas Day 2019, Ari Behn took his own life.
After the funeral, several memorial gatherings were held:
When Märtha and her family wanted to leave from their private memorial service, to greet the grieving friends gathered at Theatercaféen, she received a warning:
Se og Hør «had bought» the memorial.
The magazine had reached an agreement for the photo rights. Se og Hør published several exclusive reports from inside the event. The princess chose not to attend.
At the funeral in Oslo, there was also an American.
He would soon start digging into the past of Märtha Louise's new boyfriend.
2020
THE DUREK
REPORT
- Ari and I looked at each other
as soulmates, writes the American
Taro Gold in an email to VG.
54-year-old Gold describes himself as a musical artist, best-selling author and tech-entrepreneur. He had become acquainted with Märtha Louise and Ari Behn when the two lived in London from 2012 to 2014.
While in Norway for the funeral, Gold spent time at the home of Märtha and Durek Verrett in Lommedalen. After the visit, Gold expressed in an email that he was «extremely concerned».
Then private investigators began looking into the past of Durek Verrett. Archives in the United States were gone trough. Ex-partners, business associates and acquaintances were contacted.
«Taro Gold has been leading our work behind the scenes,» says an email VG has read, and Gold himself refers to the private investigators as «my security people» in messages.
During this period Gold also has contact with Se og Hør journalist Lars Gautneb.
«Lars and I were both friends of Ari, and mutual friends put us in touch,» Gold writes to VG about the Se og Hør journalist.
VG has seen several messages sent in connection with the private investigation of Durek Verrett.
In one of them, Gold reveals that he is in contact with a journalist who knew Ari. In another email that Gold sends, two other Se og Hør reporters are CC.
But Gold also provides conflicting information about the investigation – and suggests that it could be about several investigations of Durek, beyond his own:
In one message, Gold writes that Lars Gautneb told him that «his company» hired its own investigators.
In another, Gold writes that Se og Hør has hired its own investigators.
When VG first asks Gautneb about Gold's investigation, he says «I don't know about that».
When VG once more asks if the investigation is unknown to him, he replies:
– At least I did not initiate any investigation.
VG has submitted Gold's allegations to Gautneb, and emailed follow-up questions. Gautneb has not responded – even to the allegation that he hired his own investigators.
Editor-in-Chief Andersen of Se og Hør writes in an email:
– I would strongly reject that Se og Hør or any of the magazine's reporters are behind an investigation into Durek and his background. We have used completely ordinary journalistic methods in our coverage of Durek. The result is printed in Se og Hør.
Durek's ex-boyfriend, Hank Greenberg, was first contacted by Gold's investigators. Then he was contacted by Lars Gautneb and appeared in an interview in Se og Hør.
– He contacted me independently of Gold, but it was clear to me that they knew each other, Greenberg says.
Greenberg lined up in a major interview. After the interview, he and Gautneb drank together, he says.
– He said things he probably wouldn't normally have said to me, Greenberg says.
– He described Märtha as «a lost cause», as «cruel» - and said she had treated Ari appallingly.
Greenberg says he was paid for photos in connection with the interview. He says he accepted because he meant Durek owed him money.
He describes the behavior of Se og Hør:
«They were friendly, they were very ethical and they were only interested in the truth.»
To VG, Gautneb says:
– It's pretty gross to say that I've had a personal agenda in my coverage of Durek, and it's crazy to suggest that this one was motivated by my friendship with Ari Behn. My friendship with Ari Behn, until his death on Christmas Day 2019, was well known within Se og Hør and in the public eye.
The editor-in-chief of Se og Hør, Ulf André Andersen, confirms the openness about the friendship, and says the friendship has been publicly known.
Gold's investigation resulted in a 124-page report containing unfavorable information about Verrett.
Princess Märtha Louise first became aware of the existence of the report when a person in her circle received it.
She dismissed the contents of the report as lies.
Gold tells VG that Märtha sent «threatening letters»:
– She used her royal title in the letters, which I thought was incredibly tacky and disgraceful. I got one of the letters. In the letter, she threatened to sue me for millions of dollars if I ever spoke publicly about her boyfriend, Gold writes.
– Sadly, the same thing seems to have happened to almost all of her former close friends. So you can probably understand that I completely removed Märtha from my life.
Märtha Louise tells VG that the letter sent was an ordinary letter sent by a lawyer. This was a so-called «cease and desist» letter. She says it is incorrect that similar letters were sent to former close friends.
Gold gave up. But the writing in Se og Hør did not stop.
2023
THE
SHAMAN'S
MOTHER
The first front page spread with Dureks
mother was printed on March 31 last year.
After this she has decorated the
front page several times.
In New York, Brandon and Angelina tells that for years their aged mother has been living in a difficult financial situation.
Her siblings say she struggles with technical things, like cellphones and computers. They believe one older half-sister acts as a link between her mother and Se og Hør.
VG contacts the older half-sister and asks for an interview with her mother. A few days later, she tells that she has called her mother, but that there can be no interview because her mother has an exclusive agreement.
«She's still under contract with another newspaper», her sister writes.
VG nevertheless decides to seek out her mother at her home address in Queens, New York.
Se og Hør is the only publication her mother has given interviews to. The sister further writes that it’s about an agreement on four articles.
Editor-in-Chief Ulf André Andersen does not wish to comment on the information. He says the magazine never comments on individual cases. On a general basis, he replies that money is always a topic when Se og Hør enter into contracts, but that the magazine only buys pictures and not interviews.
Andersen confirms that Se and Hør have had contact with Durek's mother over a period of time. He describes her as «a very upstanding and present woman who fully appeared capable of making well-considered choices.»
– She has every right to tell her story as she has experienced it, regardless of what other family members may think. The interviews with Durek's mother complement and fulfill the image of the royal couple's future son-in-law, Andersen writes in an email to VG.
And further:
– Se og Hør is the only Norwegian medium that has provided complete and accurate coverage of Durek's family background.
2024
HOME
AT DUREK'S
MOM
In the Jamaica section of Queens,
half an hour’s drive from downtown
New York, the freeway parts the
neighborhood in two.
Brick houses with white facades stretch as far as the eye can see. One of the dwellings stands out, and at first glance it looks abandoned.
Through the security gate in front of the entrance, there's just enough room to pry your hand in for a knock.
Then the door to the municipal residence opens a few centimeters. That's as far as we can make out Durek Verrett's mother, Veruschka Urquhart, through the door crack.
She shakes her head when asked if she has a few minutes to talk. VG gives her a letter with the children's views.
– I'm working with someone, I’m interested to obtain the contract. You know, I work with another company, she says.
— The article I'm working on is about your interviews with Se og Hør. You've done some interviews with them, haven't you?
– I work directly with them.
That's why she doesn't want to be interviewed.
As VG walks, Veruschka Urquhart streches her hand out through the door frame and waves.