Anni-Frid Lyngstad facts: ABBA singer’s age, husband, children, net worth and more revealed

Anni-Frid was born in Bjørkåsen, a small village in Ballangen near Narvik, in northern Norway. She had a Norwegian mother, Synni (1926-1947), and a German father, Alfred Haase (1919-2009), who was a sergeant in the Wehrmacht, not long after the end of the Second World War.

In 1947, Anni-Frid, her mother Synni, and her maternal grandmother Agny, left Norway, fearing reprisals against anyone who had dealings with the Germans during the occupation of the country. She settled in Sweden with her grandmother, before her mother died of kidney failure aged just 21.

Anni-Frid believed that her father had died during the war on his way back to Germany, as his ship was reported to have sunk. However, it was revealed in 1977, thanks to a piece in the German teen magazine Bravo of all places, that he was alive. Her half-brother, Peter Haase, asked his father if he had been in Ballangen during the war. A few months later, Anni-Frid met her father in Stockholm for the first time.

After releasing a few records, in 1969 she participated in Melodifestivalen, the Swedish heats for the Eurovision Song Contest, and finished in fourth place. Backstage she met her future husband and ABBA band mate Benny Andersson.

Benny produced her debut album Frida in 1971, and a year later she agreed to join him alongside his friend Bjorn Ulvaeus and his girlfriend Agnetha Faltskog in a new group, ABB