Life within the limelight for world celebrity and pop princess Agnetha Faltskog was not all glittering phases and classy dance numbers.
The ABBA singer, 74, rose to worldwide stardom after profitable the 1974 Eurovision Tune Contest alongside her bandmates Benny Andersson, Anni-Frid Lyngstad and her then-husband Bjorn Ulvaeus.
Because the youngest member of one of many best-selling music acts in historical past, the blonde bombshell gained hearts together with her catchy tunes and girly on-stage get-up, earlier than all of it got here crashing down.
The Swedish popstar traded sparkly go-go boots for wellies when she fled the highlight to stay as a recluse on a farm, and was thrown right into a pit of melancholy when her mom took her personal life in 1994 and her father died only a yr later.
And within the midst of all of it, Faltskog turned embroiled in a stunning two yr affair together with her stalker – a person 16 years her junior, earlier than he was thrown behind bars within the early 2000s.
The extraordinary ups and downs of worldwide fame wreaked havoc on the singer’s life however the star pulled by all of it, leading to her and her fellow ABBA members reunited in Stockholm in Might 2024, the place they had been knighted for his or her ‘excellent efforts’ in Swedish and worldwide music life.
Following a tumultuous profession which carried with it a list of disasters from damaged marriages and a street site visitors accident to an accumulation of extreme phobias, MailOnline has taken a glance into the lifetime of Faltskog, a Swedish celebrity.
Agnetha Faltskog was one among 4 members of ABBA. However the star confronted emotional and psychological turmoil after she and her bandmates shot to fame after profitable the 1974 Eurovision with hit tune Waterloo. Pictured: Faltskog performing in ABBA, Nineteen Seventies
Life earlier than ABBA
Agnetha Faltskog was born on April 5, 1950, within the city of Jönköping, southern Sweden.
However not even her dad and mom Ingvar and Birgit might have predicted the celebrity their daughter would go on to achiever.
Faltskog’s father opened the door that might ultimately lead her to worldwide stardom when he organised an area Christmas present in 1956 the place she would make her first efficiency on a stage.
After starting piano classes, Faltskog began composing songs and when she turned 13, the younger singer started performing regionally alongside her two mates Lena Johansson and Elisabeth Strub as a small band referred to as The Cambers.
At 15, Faltskog left faculty and pursued a profession as a receptionist for a automotive agency whereas performing with an area dance band, headed by Bernt Enghardt.
She carried out with the boy band for 2 years and right here she wrote her first single that might quickly catapult her to fame, Jag Var Sa Kar (I Was So in Love).
She sang the ballad with Enghardt in 1967 and the debut file turned a primary hit on the Swedish charts.
The teenage Faltskog drove males loopy, particularly when she wore a pink jumpsuit with a big heart-shaped cut-out on the stomach, which precipitated one Swedish reporter to drone on unpleasantly about her ‘attractive little tummy’.
At 15, Faltskog left faculty to pursue a profession as a receptionist at a automotive agency. She joined a dance band (pictured) headed by Bernt Enghardt the place she launched her first single Jag Var Sa Kar (I Was So in Love)
In 1972, Faltskog (left) dabbled on the earth of theatre and scored a job as Mary Magdalene within the Swedish stage model of the musical Jesus Christ Famous person
The blonde star seen on the quilt of a Bernt Enghardt´s Orkester single
One other declared his temperature had been regular earlier than he knocked on her door and dissolved into an outline of ‘peachy pores and skin’ and ‘hair like frozen waterfalls’.
The next two years brimmed with singles and albums for the up and coming star, and even plenty of German-language recordings had been launched in west Germany.
As her success continued to develop, Faltskog met German songwriter and producer Dieter Zimmermann, to whom she turned engaged.
He promised her she would obtain nice success in Germany however when she arrived and met with file producers, she was left dissatisfied.
Describing their chosen materials as ‘horrible’, she quickly ended her engagement to Zimmermann and returned dwelling to Sweden.
Throughout the closing years of the 60s, Faltskog turned romantically concerned with Bjorn Ulvaeus, a member of the Hootenanny Singers.
The couple had been engaged in April 1970 and by November, the pair staged a cabaret present with Ulvaeus’ songwriter accomplice Benny Andersson and his fiancee Anni-Frid Lyngstad – the foursome would later go on to change into the sensational ABBA.
On July 6, 1971, Ulvaeus and Faltskog had been married within the village of Verum, with Andersson enjoying the organ at their marriage ceremony.
Her life started taking speedy turns as only a yr after she wed Ulvaeus, the popstar dabbled in theatre and scored herself the position of Mary Magdalene within the Swedish stage model of the musical Jesus Christ Famous person in 1972.
By February 1973, Faltskog turned a mom to her first baby Linda Elin Ulvaeus, and would give start to her son Peter Christian Ulvaeus 4 years later in December 1977.
The start of ABBA and Eurovision success
The 2 {couples}, Faltskog and Ulvaeus, and Andersson and Lyngstad, mixed their abilities formally in 1970 after holidaying to Cyprus the place they discovered themselves improvising a stay efficiency in entrance of United Nations troopers stationed on the island.
The foursome started performing extra throughout 1971 as a part of a stage act named Festfolket (Social gathering Individuals) till Stig Anderson, founding father of Polar Music, determined to attempt to break the group into the mainstream worldwide market with music written by Andersson and Ulvaeus.
‘In the future the pair of you’ll write a music that turns into a worldwide hit,’ he predicted.
By 1973, Anderson began to check with the group as ABBA – an acronym of the primary letters of the members’ first names organized as a palindrome.
Faltskog (proper) alongside Anni-Frid Lyngstad as they carried out Waterloo in Brighton on the Eurovision Tune Contest, 1974
Pictured left to proper: Bjorn Ulvaeus, Agnetha Faltskog, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad – the members of ABBA celebrating after profitable Eurovision
ABBA’s Eurovision win catapulted them to fame and the band went on to promote 150million information worldwide – turning into one of many best-selling music acts in historical past. Pictured: 1974 in Stockholm, the Swedish pop group posing after profitable the Swedish department of the Eurovision Tune Contest with their music Waterloo
Pictured six years after ABBA gained the Eurovision Tune Contest, the group had change into a worldwide sensation
ABBA grabbed headlines the world over and rapidly turned one of the influential musical acts of all time
Faltskog was often called ‘the woman with the golden hair’ and had a number of admirers when ABBA hit the worldwide stage
However ABBA was about to blow up inside the music trade, and for the younger and keen Faltskog, life was about to change into a rollercoaster of feelings and experiences that nothing might have ready her for.
ABBA gained the nation’s hearts on Swedish tv on February 9, 1974, as contestants within the Eurovision Tune Contest, which they went on to win on April 6 following their efficiency of hit music Waterloo.
Donning glitzy outfits and glowing make-up, Faltskog took to the stage with Lyngstad and delivered the bop that might go down in historical past as one of the ‘really iconic’ Eurovision moments.
The lead singer sported a glittery pair of cropped blue flares with an identical high and headband, together with a pair of knee-high silver platform boots – a sensational outfit that might later be transferred to ABBA The Museum in Sverige, Stockholm.
Following their Eurovision success, the band had been catapulted into the general public eye, producing followers throughout the globe together with the UK, Germany, South Africa, Spain, Australia, France, and the US.
Failed amorous affairs and turning into orphaned
After seven profitable years in ABBA, and after the start of two kids, Faltskog and Ulvaeus had been divorced in 1979.
It was round this time Faltskog penned the the ABBA hit The Winner Takes It All, which is believed to have been impressed from the heartbreaking divorce.
‘I am a really a lot feeling particular person and I actually tried to place my life expertise and my emotions, every little thing, on this music,’ Faltskog mentioned of the break up music within the 2024 documentary ABBA: Towards All Odds.
Ulvaeus added: ‘Going by divorce is troublesome as anybody would know who’s completed it. That was in fact taking on my ideas. However there was not one winner within the case of us.’
The Winner Takes It All was featured on ABBA’s wildly profitable Tremendous Trouper album in 1980.
Faltskog and Ulvaeus tied the knot on July 6, 1971, within the village of Verum, with Andersson enjoying the organ at their marriage ceremony
The popstar and her husband cut up after having two kids collectively, and it’s believed Faltskog penned the hit The Winner Takes it All after taking inspiration from her cut up
Agnetha Faltskog of ABBA and daughter Linda with ex-husband Bjorn Ulvaeus of ABBA, New York Metropolis, late Nineteen Seventies
The identical yr they launched the album, the wedding of Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Benny Andersson started to crumble they usually determined to half methods.
‘It wasn’t simply the music. It was additionally love. It was a life lived collectively. Someway all 4 of us,’ Lyngstad, 78, mentioned, as Andersson, 77, added, ‘That was highly effective. One in all our greatest I believe.’
Although the band managed to maintain issues skilled amid their relationship troubles, it rapidly received too troublesome to carry out the music.
The crushing cut up left Faltskog in want of remedy and in 2008, it was reported that she was left emotionally ‘mangled’ following the break up as stories swarmed that Ulvaeus had discovered a brand new girlfriend inside every week of the cut up.
‘We might really feel that the music had abruptly received a bit heavy. It was not so enjoyable anymore to file. There was one thing within the environment. A bit tragic,’ Faltskog mentioned.
Faltskog additionally had an affair with Stockholm detective Thorbjorn Brander, who had been assigned to her case after kidnap threats in the direction of her kids.
Then in December 1990, Faltskog wed Thomas Sonnenfeld, a Swedish surgeon.
The couple lived a peaceable life in a villa exterior of Stockholm, however for heartbroken Faltskog, the wedding was not meant didn’t final they usually divorced in 1993.
The celebrity’s second divorce got here only a yr earlier than her mom took her life – an occasion which might change into the toughest blow for the struggling pop idol.
Faltskog’s mom Birgit, a former store cashier, jumped to her loss of life in Jönköping on the age of 71, in 1994.
Talking solely to the MailOnline in 2013, Faltskog mentioned: ‘It was horrible. You surprise in case you might have completed one thing.
Then my father died a yr later. It is so painful. You need them with you and to have identified your grandchildren. I used to be depressed after that.
‘These had been horrible years. I withdrew into myself and that was once I actually started practising yoga as a result of there was a lot [emotion] popping out. I stayed at dwelling loads, meditated, listened to very particular songs, lit candles. It helped heal me.
‘You carry ache by your life, and if you get distance from it, you survive – however it by no means leaves you’.
A household pal of Faltskog’s revealed that following the horrific suicide, the singer who as soon as graced worldwide phases with smiles and waves was left haunted, and a shell of the bubbly popstar she as soon as was.
‘Agnetha was devastated. It was laborious for her to hold on. She could not comprehend that her mom would take such a horrible step,’ they mentioned.
The band continued performing by their relationship troubles, till ultimately each {couples} that made up ABBA had divorced
The blonde bombshell revealed she was so ‘mangled’ following her and Ulvaeus’ break up – she needed to get remedy amid persevering with to carry out as if nothing had occurred
Pictured left to proper: Bjorn Ulvaeus, Agnetha Faltskog, Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Benny Andersson as they pose for a gaggle shot in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1974 – the yr their group ABBA gained Eurovision
Faltskog pictured acting at an ABBA live performance on the Manchester Apollo
‘In addition to feeling bereft, it frightened her. She felt utterly alone on the earth.
‘After her mom’s loss of life she visited her father a number of occasions. He was in a particular dwelling by then and solely lived one other yr.’
The singer saved the tragedy secret, not even mentioning it in her autobiography, As I Am.
‘So far as anybody knew, her mom had died in some form of accident,’ mentioned Carl Magnus Palm, who labored with Faltskog on his ebook Shiny Lights, Darkish Shadows – The Actual Story Of Abba.
‘She by no means advised me what really occurred to her mom. She did not talk about her childhood.’
However the pal revealed: ‘From the second her mom killed herself, every little thing about her modified. She shut herself away from the world. It was then that folks observed how unusual she had change into.’
Spiralling deeper into chaos behind closed doorways, two years after her mom’s loss of life she started courting a forklift truck driver who had been stalking her.
The star and the stalker: A twisted love story
In 1996, a Dutch forklift driver named Gert van der Graaf, arrange dwelling 1 / 4 of a mile from Faltskog’s dwelling in Ekero, west of Stockholm.
Graaf was 16 years Faltskog’s junior when he turned obsessive about the celebrity and stalked her with scary zeal till lastly, when she was on the lowest ebb in her troubled life, he turned her secret boyfriend.
Faltskog had ran into Graaf whereas out strolling on her forty seventh birthday, and cut up up together with her then-boyfriend Kurt Torpling so far him.
‘She had identified about his obsession for years,’ her biographer Brita Ahman revealed to the Mirror.
‘However nonetheless she received concerned with him.’
Van der Graaf’s bewitchment started in 1974, when he was simply eight years outdated and watched ABBA win the Eurovision Tune Contest, staged that yr in Brighton, with the catchy Waterloo.
By his early teenagers, ABBA had disbanded however he cycled 35miles to attend one among her early solo TV performances in Holland.
And when she advised the studio viewers she ‘beloved’ them, he defined he felt the phrases had been directed solely at him.
Gert Van der Graaf was 16 years Faltskog’s junior when he started obsessively stalking her. The fork-lift driver turned the star’s secret boyfriend whereas she was at her most weak
Pictured: Faltskog and Graaf whereas the pair secretly dated. After he was arrested, at his 2000 trial Faltskog confessed: ‘His courting of me was very intense… in the long run I could not resist him’
He rode dwelling satisfied she had fallen for him, as he had for her.
His infatuation with Faltskog, and the imagined connection they shared, precipitated him to immerse himself in Swedish tradition, and he taught himself the language from a phrase-book so he might write doting letters to her in her native tongue.
As he did not have her tackle, he posted his messages to ‘Anna Faltskog, Sweden’, by no means realizing whether or not they reached her.
After making a number of determined makes an attempt to find the ABBA star, he ultimately moved to Sweden in 1997.
He borrowed £45,000 to purchase a busted picket cabin simply half a mile from Faltskog’s dwelling and located work with an area staffing company.
Quickly afterwards, he claims ‘by pure likelihood’, he ran into her as she was strolling with Torpling.
When he launched himself because the long-time admirer who had left presents for her, she reportedly did not appear displeased.
‘My coronary heart nearly damage at how stunning she was,’ he advised Strage.
‘She ought to have appeared older. She stood there in her raincoat and smelled very candy, like fragrance.’
A couple of days later, Graaf mentioned the popstar despatched her gardener to his cabin to say she appreciated his letter and ask him to ship extra.
Graaf was convicted of harassing the ABBA singer, served with a restraining order and deported to Holland on two events, in 2000 and 2003
The weird relationship blossomed earlier than Graaf’s eyes till the pair lastly shared a kiss earlier than ‘making love’.
In 1999, when the emotionally weak Faltskog ended their affair, after realising Graaf’s fixation together with her was an sickness, he started to terrorise her and shortly she was too scared to go away her dwelling.
He bombarded her with chilling letters (‘we could burn to loss of life?’ he wrote, evaluating them to Romeo and Juliet), showing abruptly at her kitchen window, and following her when she went out strolling or procuring.
Police later raided his cabin, which had change into a shrine to her.
Graaf was convicted of harassing Faltskog, served with a restraining order and deported to Holland on two events, in 2000 and 2003.
But he repeatedly broke the court docket ruling, and, a long-time pal revealed to the MailOnline final yr, he nonetheless drives recurrently to Sweden from his dwelling in Steenwijksmoer, close to the Dutch-German border, a 1,000-mile journey that takes 15 hours.
The pal additionally chillingly mentioned that Graaf continues to be ‘planning’ a technique that can see him reconciled with Faltskog, now a retired grandmother of 4, and thinks of nothing else.
At his 2000 trial Faltskog confessed: ‘His courting of me was very intense… in the long run I could not resist him.’
A few years later, when Swedish forensic psychiatrist Fredrik Heden examined Graaf, he identified him to be affected by erotomania, a uncommon psychotic situation which invokes a perception that somebody – often of a superior standing – is in love with you.
Residing as a recluse
Faltskog had backed away from the general public eye again in December 1982 when ABBA started to dissolve.
As a self-confessed ‘recluse’, the star admitted that she felt just like the ‘black sheep’ of the band, as on the peak of their fame, she was cursed with a unshakeable worry of flying and the guilt she felt leaving her younger kids as a single mom.
Her anxiousness had began to overwhelm her and her worry of flying, prompted by a terrifying expertise on a non-public jet in 1975 when the band was caught in a storm, started to accentuate.
Faltskog lived as a recluse for nearly 20 years after ABBA cut up in 1982. Pictured: The star on the island of Ekero, close to Stockholm, 1999, the place she lived in a house hidden by bushes within the secluded space
For eight years after the aircraft incident, Faltskog travelled by street and in 1983 took a non-public coach to a tour.
However this proved to be simply as harmful as her non-public bus overturned on a freeway in Sweden and he or she was thrown out of the window.
Faltskog was quickly phobic about all types of journey.
Talking on her determination to stay as a recluse, in a 2013 interview, she mentioned: ‘I married, was in ABBA, had my kids, divorced, all in 10 years. I’m wondering how I managed it, however I used to be younger.
‘Possibly I used to be a recluse for some years. I used to be so drained as soon as ABBA was over and simply needed to be calm and with my kids’.
She admitted that in her time within the supergroup, the three different members had been ‘extra social’ and loved the get together life greater than she did.
‘But it surely wasn’t as dramatic a narrative as was painted,’ she mentioned, including, ‘I used to be not in hiding, however I did go away and conceal from that life as a result of I wanted it.
‘I used to be very drained after the entire Abba interval. I wanted a break from it because it had been so consuming. There have been a few years when I didn’t hearken to Abba music in any respect – I merely could not.’
Faltskog revealed that she discovered followers terrifying, believing their ‘shouting, boiling, hysterical’ screaming was born of hate moderately than admiration.
She mentioned she would have horrible daydreams by which they set upon her and consumed her.
Many years handed, and he or she remained closeted from the skin world.
Making a comeback
After nearly 20 years hiding within the shadows of her former fame and avoiding the highlight, Faltskog emerged from her reclusive farm life in 2004.
She launched a shock single If I Thought You’d Ever Change Your Thoughts, which peaked at quantity two in Sweden and have become her highest charting UK single so far, reaching quantity 11.
Only a week later, the album My Colouring Guide, a set of Faltskog’s covers of Nineteen Sixties classics was launched and once more topped charts in Sweden because the star made a long-anticipated comeback into the music world.
In 2005, the pop icon appeared together with her former bandmates on the opening of the Mamma Mia! musical in Stockholm, and along with ex-husband Björn, additionally attended the ultimate present in January 2007.
After 20 years of residing exterior of the highlight, Faltskog returned within the early 2000s with a brand new single. Pictured: Faltskog on the Skavlan TV Programme, Sweden, March 14, 2013
Bjorn Ulvaeus, Agnetha Faltskog, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad introduced their first album in almost 40 years and unveiled a ‘revolutionary’ digital live performance present (ABBA Voyage) on September 2, 2021
An avatar of ABBA singer Agnetha Faltskog is projected at ABBA Voyage, on the ABBA Area, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Stratford, London
Faltskog took to the stage for the primary time in 25 years when she carried out a duet with Gary Barlow on the BBC Youngsters in Want Rocks live performance in London, 2013
In Might 2024, Faltskog and her fellow ABBA bandmates acquired the Royal Vasa Order from Sweden’s King Carl Gustaf and Queen Silvia for excellent contributions to Swedish and worldwide music life at a ceremony at Stockholm Royal Palace
Faltskog (pictured second from proper) donned a shocking cream robe and wore her iconic blonde locks out above her shoulders
Pictured left to proper: Bjorn Ulvaeus, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Agnetha Faltskog and Benny Andersson attending the Abba Voyage digital live performance launch on the ABBA Area, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Might 26, 2022
She has since made a number of public appearances and in 2013, sang a duet with Gary Barlow after 25 years off stage for the BBC Youngsters in Want Rocks live performance in London.
ABBA followers had been then delighted in the summertime of 2017 when Faltskog joined her bandmates to file two model new songs I Nonetheless Have Religion in You and Do not Shut Me Down, earlier than the Voyage album was launched on November 5, 2021.
On Might 27, 2022, ABBA Voyage opened in a purpose-built venue named the ABBA Area on the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, London.
Faltskog, alongside together with her bandmates, had been then reunited in Stockholm to obtain a prestigious Swedish knighthood from King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia in Might 2024.
The group acquired the Royal Order of Vasa and are actually Commanders of First Class for ‘very excellent efforts in Swedish and worldwide music life’.
In photos of the glamorous occasion, Faltskog could be seen in an elegant cream gown together with her iconic blonde hair left hanging loosely above her shoulders, and a string of pears round her neck.
Removed from the figure-hugging costumes she would put on on stage to carry out ABBA’s biggest hits, Faltskog graced the royal venue exuding magnificence and allure in a present of braveness from the star who shot to fame in a single day, stumbled on the peak, and bravely reclaimed her picture.
