Just as her band ABBA cooed in their hit song The Way Old Friends Do, singer Anni-Frid Lyngstad – or Frida as she’s known to millions – has lived a storied life full of “times of joy and times of sorrow”. In fact, her life has been so tumultuous, even bandmate BjÖrn Ulvaeus once claimed her story would serve perfectly as a play or musical.
“Out of all four of us, Frida’s had the most dramatic life,” he says.
“Her life is the classic rags-to-riches story. I can just picture the scenes and the cliffhangers.”
Now as the iconic hitmaker turns the big 8-0, Woman’s Day looks back on her extraordinary life that has as many crescendos as an ABBA ballad…
Childhood trauma
Born in Bjørkåsen, Norway, in 1945, Frida’s tragic story first began when her young mum Synni got pregnant with a child by German SS officer Alfred Haase, who’d been stationed there during the Nazi occupation. After he was rumoured to have died on his way back to Germany, Synni was ostracised from her town when people discovered who the father of her “war baby” was.
The pair later moved to Eskilstuna in Sweden to escape the vitriol. However, Synni soon died from kidney failure aged 21, leaving Frida’s grandmother to raise her.
Her talent show win!
At 22, after showing a talent for music from a young age, Frida – then married to Ragnar Fredriksson with two kids Hans and Ann Lise-Lotte – entered a televised Swedish talent contest in 1967 and won. The main prize was a record deal with EMI and she later recorded a Swedish solo album, simply titled Frida.
Her life changed forever in 1969 when she met and befriended Benny Andersson, who was then well-known for playing in the Swedish rock band the Hep Stars.
ABBA is born!
Frida soon met Agnetha Fältskog and her husband Björn, and together with Benny, they formed the band ABBA. In 1974, they entered Eurovision with Waterloo and won, walking away with millions of new fans worldwide.
“It was just unbelievable!” recalls Frida.
“There I was, a former band vocalist from Eskilstuna, and the BBC and all the major newspapers in Europe were mobbing us, demanding interviews about how we felt.”
While the band would go on to enjoy immense success, Frida’s personal life began to unravel. She’d divorced Ragnar and her “dead” dad returned, hoping to forge a relationship with her.
Divorce curse
By 1982, ABBA’s staggering success – and rumours of a rift, particularly between Frida and Agnetha – had started to take a toll on the foursome and the two couples terminated their marriages. While they attempted to keep the group active, their heartache was too raw to sing through and the band went on hiatus.
“There were a lot of tears and a lot of discussions,” Frida tells of the band’s bombshell split.
“But there was no way back. Breaking up became a necessity.”
Less than 10 years later, more heartbreak would follow, with then-44-year-old Frida receiving news her estranged father had passed away aged 89.
Double tragedy
While the third time proved to be a charm for Frida’s love life – she married Swiss aristocrat Prince Heinrich Ruzzo Reuss in 1992 – the singer would go on to experience unimaginable pain six years later. In 1998, her daughter Ann died in a horrific car accident at age 30. Frida’s husband passed away from cancer just a year later. He was 49.
“I had to have something to believe in, otherwise it would have been very difficult to cope with,” Frida says of her grief.
“It took a very long time to find joy again. It took very many years and incomprehensible grief. It was a difficult journey.”
