Hitkrant, September 1977: Anni-Frid is feeling insecure

When you see ABBA perform, the group comes across as one unity: four happy young people who are in perfect harmony with each other. But it hasn’t always been that easy for the auburn-haired Anni-Frid. She is more or less the stranger of ABBA, the quiet girl that always stayed a little in the shadow of blonde Agnetha.

Anni-Frid has gone through a lot. She was born on November 15, 1945 in Narvik in Norway. Her father was a German officer, not married to Anni-Frid’s mother; he promised to marry her but he disappeared without a trace during the war. Unwantedly, this has put a heavy pressure on Anni-Frid, not least because of her mother’s death when little Frida was only eighteen months old.

Her grandmother raised Anni-Frid in Sweden and she was a substitute for her mother. Frida learned to stand on her own two feet at an early age and soon she got acquainted with music: when she was ten she taught herself to play the guitar, when she was eleven she performed for the first time. A life filled with music had started.

When Anni-Frid was sixteen, she met Ragnar Fredriksson. The two of them fell madly in love and got married two months later. One year later, son Hans was born and two years after that came daughter Lise-Lotte. So there Frida was, nineteen years old, a housewife, two children. She couldn’t take this any longer, the music was more appealing than the household. The passionate feeling of being in love vanished as well and Frida and Ragnar separated. The children stayed with Ragnar and Anni-Frid now sees them every two months, just like her former husband, with whom she is still good friends.

From that moment on, her career as a singer really kicked off: working very hard and her first record ‘En Ledig Dag’ turned Anni-Frid Lyngstad into the most popular singer in Sweden overnight. And then she met Benny. Again love at first sight.
“Benny is the ideal man for me,” says Anni-Frid. “After I had told him about my failed marriage, it turned out that he had gone through such an experience as well. We found comfort with each other.”
ABBA is doing very well, so Anni-Frid is doing well too. But her insecurity remains; she isn’t as calm as she appears to be. And no matter how well she is getting along with Agnetha, somewhere there is still that feeling of being inferior, although no one can claim that there is a reason for that. But that’s just how the stranger of ABBA is...