Princess Martha Louise of Norway and her bisexual American Shaman husband have responded to claims they’re in a ‘lavender marriage’. 

Durek Verrett, 50, and Martha Louise, 54,  who tied the knot last year, posted a joint Instagram video on Monday to respond to comments about their relationship.

The term lavender marriage refers to a marriage where one of both of the partners is secretly gay. 

In the short clip, the couple respond to comments which accuse Shaman Durek – who is openly bisexual and previously dated men – of being gay.

One wrote: ‘The real housewife of Norway and her lavender marriage,’ while another said: ‘Girl, I don’t know if you know but you are in a lavender marriage.’ A third penned: ‘This is the greatest lavender marriage of all time.’ 

The pair then changed into purple clothing for the video, while Martha said: ‘Hmm, we do like lavender but it doesn’t seem right…’ 

They then changed into their usual vibrant casual clothing, before the Princess added: ‘Ordinary isn’t our thing. We just love,’ before lovingly gazing into her husband’s eyes. 

They then captioned the footage: ‘Thought it was lavender? Plot twist. It’s just love and legacy #rebelroyals.’

Princess Martha Louise and Shaman Durek Verrett are pictured at a gala dinner in Oslo in 2022

The couple were introduced by friends in 2019 and have claimed to have known each other in a past life, specifically from the days of ancient Egypt. 

In a trailer for their Netflix show, Rebel Royals: An Unlikely Love Story, Shaman Durek admitted he thought he’d end up with a ‘man or alien‘ before he eventually wed Norway’s Crown Princess.

He was previously engaged to masseur Hank Greenberg, who he was in a relationship with for eight years from 2007. 

 In 2012, Hank raised $20,000 for Durek’s kidney transplant on crowdfunding websites – but the pair split up under acrimonious circumstances in 2015.

During their eight-year relationship, Durek and Hank reportedly ran wellness sessions called ‘Heaven and Earth’ in LA.

Speaking to the Daily Mail’s Jan Moir in 2019, Hank explained: ‘I loved Durek dearly and wish him all the best, but I don’t have anything nice to say about him.

‘He has immense talent and I believe in his mission that love is the answer, but I don’t believe in the man any more.’

This comes as Martha and Durek have also faced backlash after they released their much-anticipated Netflix exposé, which follows the run-up to their wedding in the idyllic fjords of Geiranger last summer. 

Princess Martha Louise of Norway and her husband have hit out at claims that they are in a ‘lavender marriage’ on their Instagram account

Since its release, the pair have been accused of ‘breaching’ the agreement made with the Norwegian royal family when the Princess stepped down from senior duties in 2022.   

And weeks after it was released, Durek appeared to backtrack on several of his comments in a lengthy Instagram statement, insisting his words had been ‘twisted by the media’.

Footage used in the film featured a conversation between Crown Prince Haakon and the Shaman – despite the royal’s exit agreement forbidding any reference to members of the Royal House in ‘media productions’.

Durek, 50, had also appeared to make several heated claims against his in-laws, Norway’s King Harald V and Queen Sonja, saying they did ‘nothing to help me’ against offensive coverage in the Press, including when a publication used a racial slur against him.

He said members of the Norwegian Royal family would ‘look at me like I was crazy when I said there was racism‘, and only began to listen after Prince Harry and Meghan Markle did their interview with Oprah in 2021.

But in a lengthy statement released last night, the Shaman appeared to retract his comments and said he’d never intended to imply allegations of racism.

He said: ‘What I said in the Netflix documentary about my father-in-law [the King] not knowing racism has been twisted by the media. Let me be clear about what I meant.

‘In American culture when we say someone does not know racism it often means they have not experienced it in the same way we have or they do not understand the depth of its impact. It does not mean they are ignorant or unkind. It means their lived experience is different. Cultural language does not always translate the same way.

Princess Martha was seen lovingly gazing into her husband’s eyes after addressing the claims 

‘I love my father-in-law and my mother-in-law deeply. We have a strong and respectful relationship. They have supported me and my wife through everything and we share great love and understanding.

‘I am not a victim and I am not interested in playing one. I am an educator and my focus is always on love and lifting humanity higher. The media may twist words to create a story but the truth is simple. My family and I stand together in respect and love and that is what matters most.’

Speaking to the camera, he added that he had only meant his in-laws didn’t understand the ‘impact that racism plays on my life in years of coming back and forth to Norway’.

He insisted that ‘I love my in-laws and I appreciate them’, referencing an official statement against racism the royal house had made on his behalf – calling it ‘huge’ and a ‘sign of progressiveness in this family’.

The Shaman was referencing a statement made by the King condemning the ‘racist attitudes’ he had endured in 2022.

King Harald said at the time: ‘We are also concerned about being able to live well together, despite inequality. The racist attitudes Durek Verrett has been subjected to, especially on social media, we strongly oppose. It is a strength that the Royal Family reflects the ethnic diversity that exists in Norway.’

The controversial Shaman – who counts Gwyneth Paltrow among his celebrity clients – claimed he had his first spiritual experience at four years old.

However, it was ‘coming back to from the dead’ in 2002 that ‘strengthened’ his powers and ‘devotion to Spirit’.

‘I already identified with being Shaman Durek, but it became more clear when I came back from dying,’ he explained.

It’s believed he’s referring to a medical emergency that occurred in 2002, although reports of when the incident actually happened vary.

His own book says he was 27, a new interview with Hello! ahead of his wedding puts him at 28, in a video on his Facebook page he says he was 29, while another interview suggested he was 30-years-old.

‘I woke up in the middle of the night to find a spirit sitting on top of me, reaching into my body. The next thing I knew, I was strapped to a gurney in an ambulance with my friend Marcus sitting next to me, looking all kinds of freaked out,’ he said in his book.

During those minutes, where he was ‘dead’, Durek said he ‘went to the other side’, where he was shown ‘what we are and where we come from and what this is all about, and we are making it so much harder than it has to be.’

The couple wed on 31 August last year in Norway (pictured) and now live in a penthouse in Oslo 

He spent two months in a medically induced coma and lost the use of his legs.

‘I was told that I had brain damage, and that I would never walk again. My kidneys were in such bad shape that I spent the next eight years of my life on dialysis-an experience that forced me to walk through the fires of human suffering.’

By his own account, he suffered seven seizures on the way to hospital and his organs started shutting down. He was clinically dead for four minutes before being revived.

Some seven years after the medical emergency, Durek’s partner Hank launched a fundraiser for the shaman to have a kidney transplant, saying that his health had gone downhill after ‘years of enduring agonizing hemodialysis treatments three times a week’. 

Shaman Durek has previously faced backlash after claiming that cancer in children can be caused by ‘being unhappy’.

He published his ‘Spirit Hacking’ in 2019 in the US, but publishers banned in Norway over the unsubstantial claims. 

In 2018, Durek also claimed that he worked at Shamir Medical Centre in Israel in 1998. The following year, the hospital’s HR said they had no record of Durek’s employment, Tatler reports.

Later that year, Durek said he foresaw the 9/11 attacks in the US two years before they happened – but believed it was not his place to intervene. He also said that he predicted a ‘plague’ would come for humanity in 2020.