Angus Kidman – anguskidman.show

This week’s edition of Australian trash mag Woman’s Day (8 December 2025) has an ABBA cover story: “THE CURSE OF THE DANCING QUEEN”.

Despite that “curse” angle, it’s an article marking Frida’s 80th birthday (which happened on 15 November, so they’re a tad late to the party).

For any dedicated fan, there’s nothing new to learn in this brief recap of key ABBA moments. But there are a few lazy factual errors which it’s my duty to highlight:

• “By 1982, ABBA’s staggering success – and rumours of a rift, particularly between Agnetha and Frida – has started to take a toll on the foursome, and the two couples would soon terminate their marriages.” Bollocks. That had already happened by 1982. Bjorn and Agnetha split in 1979 and divorced in 1980, and Frida and Benny separated in 1980 and divorced in 1981. None of that helped group unity, but it wasn’t a 1982 development.
• The article suggests that Frida’s biological father Alfred Hasse “attempted to contact” her after her ABBA fame, which is not what happened. As Carl Magnus Palm outlines in his definitive group biography Dark Lights Bright Shadows, Hasse did successfully get in contact with Frida after one of Hasse’s nieces saw his name in an article about ABBA. The two met up in Stockholm, but the relationship never flourished as Frida found it hard to forgive Hasse for abandoning her pregnant mother. Five years later, Frida cut back contact with him. “I prefer to spend my time with people who won’t let you down,” she explained.
• The piece ends abruptly with the death of Frida’s husband Heinrich Ruzzo Prinz Reuss von Plauen in 1999. That feeds the “tragedy” narrative they’re going for, but ignores the fact she’s been happily shacked up with her beau Henry Smith since 2007.

Frankly, not good enough for an article that proclaims “Knowing Frida” in its title.

A second observation: Why does Woman’s Day always use the same Waterloo-era image of ABBA for its covers? Here’s another ABBA-featuring cover from back in April 2023 with the same pic.

And why, when the image was used both then and in March 2022, was Agnetha’s outfit changed from blue to pink? At least they didn’t do that this time around.

For the record, the older stories were both beat-ups too. ‘ABBA STAR’S SHOCK DEATH’ refers to the death of guitarist Lasse Wallander, and  ‘ABBA’S $186 MILLION SCANDAL’ was Bjorn’s divorce, including entirely uninformed speculation that Bjorn and Agnetha were back together. Oh dear.

And a final observation: Woman’s Day is now $6.20. They must really need the cover revenue, given $5.95 would be a much more alluring and logical price. But they’re surely not spending the funds on fact checks.

For more ABBA, check out what Voyage is like from the cheap seats, the ABBA songs that could never be singles and the ABBA song titles cryptic quiz. For more pop fact-checking, see how the New York Times got the Supremes’ history wrong, when the Tourists met Tom Baker and when Eric Idle got confused by Paul McCartney.