‘ABBA: The Movie’ airs on Channel 5 this evening, showing the Swedish superstars’ 1977 week-long tour of Australia. Released the same year, Lasse Hallström’s film shows the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest winners’ global appeal. The loose story centres on an incompetent radio DJ, who tries to secure a seemingly impossible interview with ABBA.
However, the film is actually just a chance to hear the legendary band’s hits such as ‘Dancing Queen’ and ‘Waterloo’.
ABBA, who reunited in 2016, originally consisted of two couples, Agnetha Fältskog and Björn Ulvaeus, and Benny Andersson and Anni-Frid Lyngstad.
But despite their magnetic on-stage chemistry, the band went their separate ways in 1982, just years after both duos separated.
Agnetha and Björn split officially in 1980, while Benny and Anni-Frid announced their divorce a year later.
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Agnetha, who fell for Björn aged 19 after she met him in a café, married her fellow star in 1971 and had two children with him.
After a week of getting divorced, Björn had a new partner and Agnetha received counselling.
In 2013, Agnetha opened up about her emotions singing ABBA’s hit ‘The Winner Takes It All’, which was written during her and Björn’s split.
Speaking to the Evening Standard, she said: “Björn wrote it about us after the breakdown of our marriage.”
She said: “We always told the media that it was a ‘happy’ divorce, which of course was a front.”
She added: “Obviously we all know there are no such things as happy divorces, especially when there are children involved.”
Frida and Benny’s own divorce in 1981 came after the couple first met in 1969.
Although they were already living under the same roof by 1971, they did not tie the knot until 1978.
Benny was quoted by Swedish newspaper Expressen in 1981 as saying that despite their split, the former couple were still on good terms.
He said: “I don’t know how other people deal with things like this.
“Frida and I are still friends and I’m still a member of ABBA. We are still good friends, but we are not married anymore.”
Despite the break-ups of both of ABBA’s couples, Björn told Zane Lowe last year that it still felt natural to be back in the studio with his old bandmates.
He said: “I looked around and I looked into Agnetha’s eyes and Frida’s eyes and there was the same kind of feeling, the warmth and the friendship and the bonds, between us that, as you suddenly realise no one on earth has experienced this kind of relationship that we have because, thinking about it, it’s true, nobody else has.”
‘ABBA: The Movie’ airs on Channel 5 from 7:15pm this evening.
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