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Life as a recluse, her mother's suicide and a traumatic relationship with her own stalker: As ABBA's Agnetha Faltskog returns to public eye to receive Swedish knighthood, how the pop superstar's life spiralled after Eurovision fame
Life in the limelight for global superstar and pop princess Agnetha Faltskog was not all glittering stages and trendy dance numbers.
The ABBA singer, 74, rose to international stardom after winning the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest alongside her bandmates Benny Andersson, Anni-Frid Lyngstad and her then-husband Bjorn Ulvaeus.
As the youngest member of one of the best-selling music acts in history, the blonde bombshell won hearts with her catchy tunes and girly on-stage get-up, before it all came crashing down.
The Swedish popstar traded sparkly go-go boots for wellies when she fled the spotlight to live as a recluse on a farm, and was thrown into a pit of depression when her mother took her own life in 1994 and her father died just a year later.
And in the midst of it all, Faltskog became embroiled in a shocking two year affair with her stalker - a man 16 years her junior, before he was thrown behind bars in the early 2000s.
The intense ups and downs of global fame wreaked havoc on the singer's life but the star pulled through it all, resulting in her and her fellow ABBA members reunited in Stockholm in May 2024, where they were knighted for their 'outstanding efforts' in Swedish and international music life.
Following a tumultuous career which carried with it a catalogue of disasters from broken marriages and a road traffic accident to an accumulation of severe phobias, MailOnline has taken a look into the life of Faltskog, a Swedish superstar.
Agnetha Faltskog was one of four members of ABBA. But the star faced emotional and mental turmoil after she and her bandmates shot to fame after winning the 1974 Eurovision with hit tune Waterloo. Pictured: Faltskog performing in ABBA, 1970s
Life before ABBA
Agnetha Faltskog was born on April 5, 1950, in the town of Jönköping, southern Sweden.
But not even her parents Ingvar and Birgit could have predicted the fame their daughter would go on to achiever.
Faltskog's father opened the door that would eventually lead her to international stardom when he organised a local Christmas show in 1956 where she would make her first performance on a stage.
After beginning piano lessons, Faltskog started composing songs and when she turned 13, the young singer began performing locally alongside her two friends Lena Johansson and Elisabeth Strub as a small band called The Cambers.
At 15, Faltskog left school and pursued a career as a receptionist for a car firm while performing with a local dance band, headed by Bernt Enghardt.
She performed with the boy band for two years and here she wrote her first single that would soon catapult her to fame, Jag Var Sa Kar (I Was So in Love).
She sang the ballad with Enghardt in 1967 and the debut record became a number one hit on the Swedish charts.
The teenage Faltskog drove men crazy, especially when she wore a pink jumpsuit with a large heart-shaped cut-out on the abdomen, which caused one Swedish reporter to drone on unpleasantly about her 'sexy little tummy'.
At 15, Faltskog left school to pursue a career as a receptionist at a car firm. She joined a dance band (pictured) headed by Bernt Enghardt where she released her first single Jag Var Sa Kar (I Was So in Love)
In 1972, Faltskog (left) dabbled in the world of theatre and scored a role as Mary Magdalene in the Swedish stage version of the musical Jesus Christ Superstar
The blonde star seen on the cover of a Bernt Enghardt´s Orkester single
Another declared his temperature had been normal before he knocked on her door and dissolved into a description of 'peachy skin' and 'hair like frozen waterfalls'.
The following two years brimmed with singles and albums for the up and coming star, and even a number of German-language recordings were released in west Germany.
As her success continued to grow, Faltskog met German songwriter and producer Dieter Zimmermann, to whom she became engaged.
He promised her she would achieve great success in Germany but when she arrived and met with record producers, she was left disappointed.
Describing their chosen material as 'horrible', she soon ended her engagement to Zimmermann and returned home to Sweden.
During the final years of the 60s, Faltskog became romantically involved with Bjorn Ulvaeus, a member of the Hootenanny Singers.
The couple were engaged in April 1970 and by November, the pair staged a cabaret show with Ulvaeus' songwriter partner Benny Andersson and his fiancee Anni-Frid Lyngstad - the foursome would later go on to become the sensational ABBA.
On July 6, 1971, Ulvaeus and Faltskog were married in the village of Verum, with Andersson playing the organ at their wedding.
Her life began taking rapid turns as just a year after she wed Ulvaeus, the popstar dabbled in theatre and scored herself the role of Mary Magdalene in the Swedish stage version of the musical Jesus Christ Superstar in 1972.
By February 1973, Faltskog became a mother to her first child Linda Elin Ulvaeus, and would give birth to her son Peter Christian Ulvaeus four years later in December 1977.
The birth of ABBA and Eurovision success
The two couples, Faltskog and Ulvaeus, and Andersson and Lyngstad, combined their talents officially in 1970 after holidaying to Cyprus where they found themselves improvising a live performance in front of United Nations soldiers stationed on the island.
The foursome began performing more during 1971 as part of a stage act named Festfolket (Party People) until Stig Anderson, founder of Polar Music, decided to try and break the group into the mainstream international market with music written by Andersson and Ulvaeus.
'One day the pair of you will write a song that becomes a worldwide hit,' he predicted.
By 1973, Anderson started to refer to the group as ABBA - an acronym of the first letters of the members' first names arranged as a palindrome.
Faltskog (right) alongside Anni-Frid Lyngstad as they performed Waterloo in Brighton at the Eurovision Song Contest, 1974
Pictured left to right: Bjorn Ulvaeus, Agnetha Faltskog, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad - the members of ABBA celebrating after winning Eurovision
ABBA's Eurovision win catapulted them to fame and the band went on to sell 150million records worldwide - becoming one of the best-selling music acts in history. Pictured: 1974 in Stockholm, the Swedish pop group posing after winning the Swedish branch of the Eurovision Song Contest with their song Waterloo
Pictured six years after ABBA won the Eurovision Song Contest, the group had become a global sensation
ABBA grabbed headlines across the world and quickly became one of the most influential musical acts of all time
Faltskog was known as 'the girl with the golden hair' and had several admirers when ABBA hit the global stage
But ABBA was about to explode within the music industry, and for the young and eager Faltskog, life was about to become a rollercoaster of emotions and experiences that nothing could have prepared her for.
ABBA won the nation's hearts on Swedish television on February 9, 1974, as contestants in the Eurovision Song Contest, which they went on to win on April 6 following their performance of hit song Waterloo.
Donning glitzy outfits and sparkling make-up, Faltskog took to the stage with Lyngstad and delivered the bop that would go down in history as one of the most 'truly iconic' Eurovision moments.
The lead singer sported a glittery pair of cropped blue flares with a matching top and headband, along with a pair of knee-high silver platform boots - a sensational outfit that would later be transferred to ABBA The Museum in Sverige, Stockholm.
Following their Eurovision success, the band were catapulted into the public eye, generating fans across the globe including the UK, Germany, South Africa, Spain, Australia, France, and the US.
Failed love affairs and becoming orphaned
After seven successful years in ABBA, and after the birth of two children, Faltskog and Ulvaeus were divorced in 1979.
It was around this time Faltskog penned the the ABBA hit The Winner Takes It All, which is believed to have been inspired from the heartbreaking divorce.
'I'm a very much feeling person and I really tried to put my life experience and my feelings, everything, in this song,' Faltskog said of the break up song in the 2024 documentary ABBA: Against All Odds.
Ulvaeus added: 'Going through divorce is difficult as anyone would know who's done it. That was of course taking up my thoughts. But there was not one winner in the case of us.'
The Winner Takes It All was featured on ABBA's wildly successful Super Trouper album in 1980.
Faltskog and Ulvaeus tied the knot on July 6, 1971, in the village of Verum, with Andersson playing the organ at their wedding
The popstar and her husband split after having two children together, and it is believed Faltskog penned the hit The Winner Takes it All after taking inspiration from her split
Agnetha Faltskog of ABBA and daughter Linda with ex-husband Bjorn Ulvaeus of ABBA, New York City, late 1970s
The same year they released the album, the marriage of Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Benny Andersson began to crumble and they decided to part ways.
'It wasn't just the music. It was also love. It was a life lived together. Somehow all four of us,' Lyngstad, 78, said, as Andersson, 77, added, 'That was powerful. One of our best I think.'
Though the band managed to keep things professional amid their relationship troubles, it quickly got too difficult to perform the song.
The crushing split left Faltskog in need of therapy and in 2008, it was reported that she was left emotionally 'mangled' following the break up as reports swarmed that Ulvaeus had found a new girlfriend within a week of the split.
'We could feel that the song had suddenly got a bit heavy. It was not so fun anymore to record. There was something in the atmosphere. A bit tragic,' Faltskog said.
Faltskog also had an affair with Stockholm detective Thorbjorn Brander, who had been assigned to her case after kidnap threats towards her children.
Then in December 1990, Faltskog wed Thomas Sonnenfeld, a Swedish surgeon.
The couple lived a peaceful life in a villa outside of Stockholm, but for heartbroken Faltskog, the marriage was not meant did not last and they divorced in 1993.
The superstar's second divorce came just a year before her mother took her life - an event which would become the hardest blow for the struggling pop idol.
Faltskog's mother Birgit, a former shop cashier, jumped to her death in Jönköping at the age of 71, in 1994.
Speaking exclusively to the MailOnline in 2013, Faltskog said: 'It was terrible. You wonder if you could have done something.
Then my father died a year later. It's so painful. You want them with you and to have known your grandchildren. I was depressed after that.
'Those were terrible years. I withdrew into myself and that was when I really began practising yoga because there was so much [emotion] coming out. I stayed at home a lot, meditated, listened to very special songs, lit candles. It helped heal me.
'You carry pain through your life, and when you get distance from it, you survive – but it never leaves you'.
A family friend of Faltskog's revealed that following the horrific suicide, the singer who once graced international stages with smiles and waves was left haunted, and a shell of the bubbly popstar she once was.
'Agnetha was devastated. It was hard for her to carry on. She couldn't comprehend that her mother would take such a terrible step,' they said.
The band continued performing through their relationship troubles, until eventually both couples that made up ABBA had divorced
The blonde bombshell revealed she was so 'mangled' following her and Ulvaeus' break up - she had to get therapy amid continuing to perform as if nothing had happened
Pictured left to right: Bjorn Ulvaeus, Agnetha Faltskog, Anni-Frid Lyngstad and Benny Andersson as they pose for a group shot in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1974 - the year their group ABBA won Eurovision
Faltskog pictured performing at an ABBA concert at the Manchester Apollo
'As well as feeling bereft, it frightened her. She felt completely alone in the world.
'After her mother's death she visited her father several times. He was in a special home by then and only lived another year.'
The singer kept the tragedy secret, not even mentioning it in her autobiography, As I Am.
'As far as anyone knew, her mother had died in some kind of accident,' said Carl Magnus Palm, who worked with Faltskog on his book Bright Lights, Dark Shadows - The Real Story Of Abba.
'She never told me what actually happened to her mother. She didn't speak about her childhood.'
But the friend revealed: 'From the moment her mother killed herself, everything about her changed. She shut herself away from the world. It was then that people noticed how strange she had become.'
Spiralling deeper into chaos behind closed doors, two years after her mother's death she began dating 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, set up home a quarter of a mile from Faltskog's home in Ekero, west of Stockholm.
Graaf was 16 years Faltskog's junior when he became obsessed with the superstar and stalked her with frightening zeal until finally, when she was at the lowest ebb in her troubled life, he became her secret boyfriend.
Faltskog had bumped into Graaf while out walking on her 47th birthday, and split up with her then-boyfriend Kurt Torpling to date him.
'She had known about his obsession for years,' her biographer Brita Ahman revealed to the Mirror.
'But still she got involved with him.'
Van der Graaf's bewitchment began in 1974, when he was just eight years old and watched ABBA win the Eurovision Song Contest, staged that year in Brighton, with the catchy Waterloo.
By his early teens, ABBA had disbanded but he cycled 35miles to attend one of her early solo TV performances in Holland.
And when she told the studio audience she 'loved' them, he explained he felt the words were directed only at him.
Gert Van der Graaf was 16 years Faltskog's junior when he began obsessively stalking her. The fork-lift driver became the star's secret boyfriend while she was at her most vulnerable
Pictured: Faltskog and Graaf while the pair secretly dated. After he was arrested, at his 2000 trial Faltskog confessed: 'His courting of me was very intense... in the end I couldn't resist him'
He rode home convinced she had fallen for him, as he had for her.
His infatuation with Faltskog, and the imagined connection they shared, caused him to immerse himself in Swedish culture, and he taught himself the language from a phrase-book so he could write doting letters to her in her native tongue.
As he didn't have her address, he posted his messages to 'Anna Faltskog, Sweden', never knowing whether they reached her.
After making several desperate attempts to locate the ABBA star, he eventually moved to Sweden in 1997.
He borrowed £45,000 to buy a busted wooden cabin just half a mile from Faltskog's home and found work with a local staffing agency.
Soon afterwards, he claims 'by pure chance', he bumped into her as she was walking with Torpling.
When he introduced himself as the long-time admirer who had left presents for her, she reportedly didn't seem displeased.
'My heart almost hurt at how beautiful she was,' he told Strage.
'She should have looked older. She stood there in her raincoat and smelled very sweet, like perfume.'
A few days later, Graaf said the popstar sent her gardener to his cabin to say she liked his letter and ask him to send more.
Graaf was convicted of harassing the ABBA singer, served with a restraining order and deported to Holland on two occasions, in 2000 and 2003
The bizarre relationship blossomed before Graaf's eyes until the pair finally shared a kiss before 'making love'.
In 1999, when the emotionally vulnerable Faltskog ended their affair, after realising Graaf's fixation with her was an illness, he began to terrorise her and soon she was too scared to leave her home.
He bombarded her with chilling letters ('shall we burn to death?' he wrote, comparing them to Romeo and Juliet), appearing suddenly at her kitchen window, and following her when she went out walking or shopping.
Police later raided his cabin, which had become a shrine to her.
Graaf was convicted of harassing Faltskog, served with a restraining order and deported to Holland on two occasions, in 2000 and 2003.
Yet he repeatedly broke the court ruling, and, a long-time friend revealed to the MailOnline last year, he still drives regularly to Sweden from his home in Steenwijksmoer, near the Dutch-German border, a 1,000-mile journey that takes 15 hours.
The friend also chillingly said that Graaf is still 'planning' a strategy that will see him reconciled with Faltskog, now a retired grandmother of four, and thinks of nothing else.
At his 2000 trial Faltskog confessed: 'His courting of me was very intense... in the end I couldn't resist him.'
Many years later, when Swedish forensic psychiatrist Fredrik Heden examined Graaf, he diagnosed him to be suffering from erotomania, a rare psychotic condition which invokes a belief that someone – usually of a superior standing – is in love with you.
Living as a recluse
Faltskog had backed away from the public eye back in December 1982 when ABBA began to dissolve.
As a self-confessed 'recluse', the star admitted that she felt like the 'black sheep' of the band, as at the height of their fame, she was cursed with a unshakeable fear of flying and the guilt she felt leaving her young children as a single mother.
Her anxiety had started to overwhelm her and her fear of flying, prompted by a terrifying experience on a private jet in 1975 when the band was caught in a storm, began to intensify.
Faltskog lived as a recluse for almost two decades after ABBA split in 1982. Pictured: The star on the island of Ekero, near Stockholm, 1999, where she lived in a home hidden by trees in the secluded area
For eight years after the plane incident, Faltskog travelled by road and in 1983 took a private coach to a tour.
But this proved to be just as dangerous as her private bus overturned on a highway in Sweden and she was thrown out of the window.
Faltskog was soon phobic about all forms of travel.
Speaking on her decision to live as a recluse, in a 2013 interview, she said: 'I married, was in ABBA, had my children, divorced, all in 10 years. I wonder how I managed it, but I was young.
'Maybe I was a recluse for some years. I was so tired once ABBA was over and just wanted to be calm and with my children'.
She admitted that during her time in the supergroup, the three other members were 'more social' and enjoyed the party life more than she did.
'But it wasn't as dramatic a story as was painted,' she said, adding, 'I was not in hiding, but I did go away and hide from that life because I needed it.
'I was very tired after the whole Abba period. I needed a break from it as it had been so consuming. There were a couple of years when I did not listen to Abba music at all – I simply couldn't.'
Faltskog revealed that she found fans terrifying, believing their 'shouting, boiling, hysterical' screaming was born of hate rather than admiration.
She said she would have terrible daydreams in which they set upon her and consumed her.
Decades passed, and she remained closeted from the outside world.
Making a comeback
After almost two decades hiding in the shadows of her former fame and avoiding the spotlight, Faltskog emerged from her reclusive farm life in 2004.
She released a surprise single If I Thought You'd Ever Change Your Mind, which peaked at number two in Sweden and became her highest charting UK single to date, reaching number 11.
Just a week later, the album My Colouring Book, a collection of Faltskog's covers of 1960s classics was released and again topped charts in Sweden as the star made a long-anticipated comeback into the music world.
In 2005, the pop icon appeared with her former bandmates at the opening of the Mamma Mia! musical in Stockholm, and together with ex-husband Björn, also attended the final show in January 2007.
After 20 years of living outside of the spotlight, Faltskog returned in the early 2000s with a new single. Pictured: Faltskog on the Skavlan TV Programme, Sweden, March 14, 2013
Bjorn Ulvaeus, Agnetha Faltskog, Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad announced their first album in nearly 40 years and unveiled a 'revolutionary' digital concert show (ABBA Voyage) on September 2, 2021
An avatar of ABBA singer Agnetha Faltskog is projected at ABBA Voyage, at the ABBA Arena, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, Stratford, London
Faltskog took to the stage for the first time in 25 years when she performed a duet with Gary Barlow at the BBC Children in Need Rocks concert in London, 2013
In May 2024, Faltskog and her fellow ABBA bandmates received the Royal Vasa Order from Sweden's King Carl Gustaf and Queen Silvia for outstanding contributions to Swedish and international music life at a ceremony at Stockholm Royal Palace
Faltskog (pictured second from right) donned a stunning cream gown and wore her iconic blonde locks out above her shoulders
Pictured left to right: Bjorn Ulvaeus, Anni-Frid Lyngstad, Agnetha Faltskog and Benny Andersson attending the Abba Voyage digital concert launch at the ABBA Arena, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, May 26, 2022
She has since made several public appearances and in 2013, sang a duet with Gary Barlow after 25 years off stage for the BBC Children in Need Rocks concert in London.
ABBA fans were then delighted in the summer of 2017 when Faltskog joined her bandmates to record two brand new songs I Still Have Faith in You and Don't Shut Me Down, before the Voyage album was released on November 5, 2021.
On May 27, 2022, ABBA Voyage opened in a purpose-built venue named the ABBA Arena at the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in Stratford, London.
Faltskog, along with her bandmates, were then reunited in Stockholm to receive a prestigious Swedish knighthood from King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia in May 2024.
The group received the Royal Order of Vasa and are now Commanders of First Class for 'very outstanding efforts in Swedish and international music life'.
In images of the glamorous event, Faltskog can be seen in a chic cream dress with her iconic blonde hair left hanging loosely above her shoulders, and a string of pears around her neck.
Far from the figure-hugging costumes she would wear on stage to perform ABBA's greatest hits, Faltskog graced the royal venue exuding elegance and charm in a show of courage from the star who shot to fame overnight, stumbled at the peak, and bravely reclaimed her image.