Durek Verrett (born Derek David Verrett; November 17, 1974) is an American self-professed shaman practicing neoshamanism who, since 2024, has been married to Princess Märtha Louise of Norway. He has been widely described by Norwegian media as a con man and conspiracy theorist.
Verrett promotes New Age–influenced practices and his claims have been widely criticized as pseudoscientific, including that children get cancer because they want it, that chemotherapy is ineffective and financially motivated, and that casual sex attracts subterranean spirits. He identifies as a reptilian, regards 5G technology as a conspiracy, and claims to have known about the September 11 attacks two years before they happened, but chose not to intervene.
Verrett's relationship with the princess and his statements have drawn widespread criticism in Norway, such that she relinquished her royal duties to separate their commercial activities from the monarchy. Although Verrett is a member by marriage of the Norwegian royal family, he is not royal and holds no title.
Controversies surrounding Märtha Louise and Verrett, along with the Marius Borg Høiby affair, have been linked to a significant decline in public support for the Norwegian monarchy.
Background Durek Verrett was born Derek David Verrett on November 17, 1974, in Sacramento, California, and grew up in Foster City. He legally changed his name to Durek Verrett in 2014. Much of the information about his origins or childhood is uncertain.
His parents divorced when he was three, and he lived with his father, David Benjamin Verrett (1929–2017), and his stepmother.
Verrett's ancestors were enslaved in the New Orleans area at least since the early 19th century, where they continued to live and where Verrett's father was born. Durek Verrett's great-uncle was the jazz guitarist Harrison Verrett, a brother-in-law of Fats Domino, and his aunt was the opera singer Shirley Verrett, whom he said encouraged him to explore his spirituality. In the mid 20th century Verrett's grandparents moved to California with their children.
Verrett has four siblings, as reported by Norwegian news outlets, including his one-year-older sister Angelina Verrett and his brother, Brandon Clark, the others being estranged half-sisters. Suffering from renal failure at the age of 28, he said about his sister Angelina that she saved his life, after she donated him one of her kidneys [in 2012] and he has always been very close to her and her three children. In August 2026, Durek underwent a second kidney transplant in Oslo.
Career Verrett dropped out of high school. Before he began calling himself a shaman, Verrett worked as a model and an actor.
In 2019, Verrett released a book titled Spirit Hacking which was set to be published in Norway. However, major publisher Cappelen Damm dropped the book a week prior to its scheduled publication over concerns about its content. The book was later released by a small publisher. In the book, Verrett advocates numerous "absurd medical theories".
Verrett has stated that his "true mission is to bring the ancient practice of shamanism to the mainstream, helping people to 'get lit' by cultivating love and acceptance of themselves and others."
Claims In a 2019 interview to Vanity Fair, Verrett claimed that his father was a wealthy architect with a private plane and domestic servants. However, in an interview to , his mother Sheilah G. Farmer (1943–2026), who went by the alias Veruschka Urquhart, claimed that Verrett's family was not as wealthy as he has claimed. His sister Angelina has defended Verrett and described their upbringing as fine. Verrett has claimed that his mother was of Norwegian-West Indian descent, although he has alternately described her as being of Native American heritage, and he has also claimed "she was white." He has sometimes claimed that his father was of African and Haitian origin, while at other times stating his father was "Native American Blackfoot Indian".
At age 27, Verrett claims he had a near-death experience which was a pivotal "rite of passage to become a shaman". In 2018, Verrett stated in multiple interviews that his near-death experience happened in Los Angeles, California, where a friend drove him to a local hospital. However, since 2019, Verrett has changed the story, stating that it occurred in a Belize jungle while he was with a medicine woman, and that he was transported to a hospital there via ambulance. In all versions of the story, Verrett claims he underwent emergency tracheotomy (surgical opening of the throat) and sternotomy (surgical opening of the chest).
Verrett has claimed to have been initiated spiritually by an American woman who calls herself "Princess Susana von Radić of Croatia" (who is described by the Icelandic atheist association Vantrú as "a fraud who claims to be a princess").
On his personal website from 2011 to 2020 he claimed to be a third-generation shaman. Since 2020, he changed his claim and began describing himself as a sixth-generation shaman.
In 2018 and 2019, Verrett claimed that he worked at Shamir Medical Center in Israel for several months during 1998, where he said he treated children for cancer using shamanistic methods. However, in 2019, the hospital's Human Resources department stated that Verrett never worked at the institution.
In his 2019 book Spirit Hacking Verrett claims children get cancer because they want it, and suggests that chemotherapy does not work and is only given to cancer patients because the doctors make money from it. He wrote in the book that casual sex attracts subterranean spirits that make an impression on the inside of women's vaginas; he also sells exercises to "clean out" said vaginas.
In 2019, Verrett claimed that he had knowledge of the September 11 attacks two years before they happened, but that he chose not to intervene because he believes that everyone must "accept their destiny".
In 2021, Verrett stated that he considers himself to be a reptilian, and asserted that, "I'm a hybrid species of reptilian and Andromeda, and I also hold the energies of the ancient spirits from the old world. There have been lies told about our species that I want to address. We are a cluster of beings, that means that we've come here to create structures that help people to come into liberation. Reptilians are here to shake up the system in a big way."
Verrett has also claimed that he has risen from the dead and is a reincarnated Pharaoh from Egypt. Verrett says that he can "turn atoms" and reduce age. Verrett has stated that he considers the 5G technology to be a conspiracy by "those who enslave the planet".
In 2022, Aftenposten journalist Ingeborg Senneset wrote an open letter to Verrett, in which she addressed his habit of sending her voice messages, such as "Hey, my love" on Instagram and telling her that the "Illuminati" is real and that celebrities and powerful politicians corroborate his claims. Verrett subsequently blocked Senneset when she asked critical questions about his Illuminati claims.
Verrett claimed he was criticized of his marriage to Märtha Louise's because "people don't want a black man in the royal family." Verrett said, "I have never experienced so much racism as when I came to Norway." He further said that he is misunderstood, comparing himself to "geniuses [like] Albert Einstein, Thomas Edison, the Wright brothers and Helen Keller".
Early in 2023, Verrett had claimed that Märtha Louise's late ex-husband, Ari Behn, who died by suicide in 2019, had contacted him through mediumship and asked him to greet Märtha Louise's children.
In December 2023, Verrett posted a controversial video on Instagram in which he claimed that demonic beings can inhabit children and torment them. Therefore, he advised parents to speak directly and loudly at troubled, aggressive, and acting-out children, commanding the dark spirits within them to come "into the light". Many observers consider Verrett's parenting advice to be a harmful encouragement of exorcism.
Verrett claimed that when he was a child his mother foresaw him marrying a Norwegian princess, however, his mother publicly denied this as a fake story that Verrett created himself.
Reactions Verrett has been characterized by Norwegian media and other critics as a conman and a conspiracy theorist, and his statements on various topics have been widely criticized and ridiculed in Norway.
Cancer experts called Verrett's views on cancer "dangerous". Major newspaper Dagbladet described his 2019 Spirit Hacking book as "the ravings of a lunatic". Verdens Gang called the book "nonsense, garbage and dirty talk", and said it is an unoriginal "rehash of the standard repertoire of the most cynical part of the alternative [i.e. New Age] culture".
According to extremism researcher John Færseth, Verrett's ideas about being a reptilian are based on the Reptilian conspiracy theory advocated by British conspiracy theorist author David Icke.
The former Prime Minister of Norway Erna Solberg described Verrett's views as "very strange" and "not based on facts", and said that "the ideas that he promotes are something that we combat as conspiracy theories." Solberg further said the criticism of Verrett is reasonable. State Secretary of the Norwegian Ministry of Health and Care Services, Ole Henrik Krat Bjørkholt, described Verrett as "an unscrupulous and dangerous charlatan" who engages in fraud. In 2023, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre strongly condemned Verrett, calling his statements on child rearing "dangerous".
Verrett's claims of experiencing racism in Norway have been criticized, with former Norwegian cabinet minister Abid Raja (of Pakistani descent) accusing Verrett of "playing the race card" to distract from the criticism of his conspiracy theories and "dangerous" views. Comedian Jonna Støme, himself of African American descent, said that Verrett's claims undermine the real fight against racism and that people in Norway react negatively to Verrett because "he is a conman who says horrible things."
Wikipedia On behalf of the princess and her shaman, "reputation manager" Elden complained about the inclusion of quotations from former Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg that appear in the Wikipedia article about Verrett, in which she criticised Verrett for promoting "strange ideas" linked to conspiracy theories. Lawyer and media law expert publicly stated that it is futile to demand the removal of a correct quotation from a public statement by a prime minister.
The political editor of Nettavisen, Erik Stephansen, wrote that "the revelation of Verrett's repeated attempts to change or remove unfavorable information from Wikipedia" is one of the most striking examples of attempts to hide unfortunate traces from the "con artist shaman's" past life.
Legal problems In 1991, Verrett was convicted of felony arson and trespassing and sentenced to five years of imprisonment in California after he illegally organized a party in an unoccupied house that was set on fire and burned to the ground. Verrett has stated that he served one year in prison before being released on parole.
In July 2022, Verrett advertised and sold a medallion that he claimed cures COVID-19. The Norwegian Consumer Ombudsman declared Verrett's undocumented claims to be a violation of Norwegian law. As a result, in 2023, Verrett ceased selling that product and began selling another medallion for over 2,000 Norwegian kroner that he claims can cure dogs of various ailments, which has been criticized by the Norwegian Veterinary Association as not based on science.
Personal life In 2005, Verrett married Zaneta Marzalkova, a Los Angeles resident of Czech nationality, when she was 21 years old. Verrett claimed that Marzalkova used him to obtain a green card and reported her to immigration authorities in 2008. She filed for divorce afterward, and they were divorced in 2009.