Introduction

ABBA’s Benny Andersson Finally Reveals What Broke Them Apart — And It Still Hurts

For millions of fans, ABBA seemed unstoppable.

Agnetha Fältskog, Björn Ulvaeus, Benny Andersson, and Anni-Frid “Frida” Lyngstad created some of the most joyful pop music ever recorded. Yet behind the glittering costumes, perfect harmonies, and enormous international success, their personal lives were changing in ways that eventually made continuing together increasingly difficult.

So what really broke ABBA apart?

Sensational headlines sometimes suggest that Benny Andersson has finally revealed one devastating secret. The reality is more complicated—and perhaps more emotional.

ABBA wasn’t merely four musicians working together.

They were two couples.

Agnetha and Björn married in 1971. Benny and Frida married in 1978 after being together for years.

That closeness helped create ABBA’s extraordinary chemistry, but it also meant personal and professional relationships were inseparable.

Then the marriages began falling apart.

Agnetha and Björn separated and divorced around the turn of the decade. Benny and Frida’s marriage subsequently ended as well.

Imagine what happened next.

Most divorced couples can create distance from each other.

ABBA couldn’t.

They still had songs to record, promotional commitments to fulfill, and millions of fans expecting the four smiling faces they knew from album covers.

Some of ABBA’s most emotionally powerful music emerged during this period.

“The Winner Takes It All,” written by Björn and Benny and sung with unforgettable emotion by Agnetha, became impossible for listeners not to connect with the group’s changing personal relationships.

The music was becoming more mature.

But life inside ABBA was becoming more complicated.

By 1982, the group effectively stepped away from working together. There was no single dramatic announcement declaring that ABBA would never return.

They simply stopped.

And then something unexpected happened.

Their absence made the music bigger.

New generations discovered “Dancing Queen,” “Mamma Mia,” “Take a Chance on Me,” and “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme!” The stage musical Mamma Mia! became an international phenomenon, followed by hugely successful films.

Fans repeatedly begged for a reunion.

For decades, it didn’t happen.

The four members built separate lives, and Benny and Björn continued creating music together. The past, however, could not simply be recreated.

Then, nearly 40 years after ABBA’s original recording era ended, the impossible happened.

All four returned for Voyage in 2021.

They recorded new music together.

The reunion revealed something important about ABBA’s original separation.

There didn’t need to be one villain.

There didn’t need to be one explosive betrayal.

Sometimes relationships change. Marriages end. People grow older. And a group created by four people deeply intertwined personally and professionally can reach a point where continuing no longer feels natural.

Perhaps that is why ABBA’s story still hurts.

Listen to “The Winner Takes It All” today and beneath Agnetha’s extraordinary voice is something every generation understands:

Love can end even when the memories don’t.

ABBA eventually found their way back to one another.

Not as the young couples they once were.

But as four people who had survived the heartbreak, preserved the music, and discovered that after all those years, their voices could still belong together.