Inside the 'incomprehensible grief' ABBA’s Frida endured after the loss of her daughter and husband

12 May 2026, 16:09

They brought joy to millions, and continue to do so still.

There's an elite few artists or bands that are known and loved around the entire world – and ABBA is one of them.

Throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s, the awesome foursome wrote an unprecedented amount of pop hits that live on today.

We've all belted out the likes of 'Dancing Queen', 'Waterloo', 'Mamma Mia', 'Fernando', 'The Winner Takes It All', and countless others during our lives.

Well, we've got Agnetha, Anni-Frid, Benny and Bjorn to thank for soundtracking those moments.

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Whilst ABBA's music might illicit nothing but happiness, the bandmates' lives behind the scenes haven't always matched the positivity they've expressed.

The dissolution of marriages between Agnetha and Björn and Frida and Benny were well publicised, as they contributed to the demise of the group.

But they've also had to endure unimaginable loss in their personal lives, in particular Frida.

Not only did she have to contend with the death of her husband – her daughter died only a year earlier.

Tragically, when Frida lost her husband, she was in her third marriage and was happily married to the love of her life.

She was first married in 1964 to a salesman and fellow musician, Ragnar Fredriksson, long before she achieved any kind of fame.

With Fredriksson, Frida had two children – Hans Ragnar and Ann Lise-Lotte – before they got divorced in 1970.

As we all know, she entered a relationship with fellow ABBA bandmate Benny Andersson shortly after she left Fredriksson.

The couple eventually married in 1978, having lived together and made beautiful music together since 1971.

But their marriage would only last three years, as they divorced in 1981, which was also the final nail in the coffin for ABBA.

It wasn't until 1992 that she eventually met her soulmate, after marrying Prince Heinrich Ruzzo, Reuss of Plauen.

Prince Ruzzo (as he was called) was a Swiss-born Swedish landscape architect who was also a prince of the formerly sovereign House of Reuss.

Frida became an actual princess. However, her fairytale love story would end several years later.

Prince Ruzzo died of lymphoma on October 29, 1999, in Stockholm, Sweden, having battled the terrible disease for months and months.

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In the documentary ABBA: The Missing 40 Years, Frida discussed her love for him and the loss she endured.

"He was an absolutely amazing, wonderful, spiritual, funny human being and I loved him more than anything.

"So it was obviously a huge sorrow that this happened to us, that he got cancer at 49 years old."

She praised him for bringing his daughters into her life, her two stepdaughters, adding: "Ruzzo changed my life enormously, and he brought joy and love and two new children: my stepdaughters."

It was already a period of grief for Frida, who suffered the unimaginable loss of her daughter Ann Lise-Lotte the year before on January 13, 1998.

Tragically, she was just 30 years old and died of the injuries she sustained in a catastrophic car accident in New York State.

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Frida touched upon her pain in a 2014 interview with Norwegian journalist Fredrik Skavlan.

"What I experienced might make that experience a great loneliness which gradually became natural to me,' she admitted.

She also opened up about the grief of losing her child in the documentary ABBA: The Missing 40 Years.

"It took a very long time. It took very many years and incomprehensible grief," Frida confessed.

Frida was left the title of Dowager Princess and Countess after the death of her husband, Prince Ruzzo.

After the pain and suffering she battled through, Frida did find love again.

In 2007 she met Henry Smith, a Brit who was also the fifth Viscount Hambleden. She's been with him ever since.