It’s not over. Not for my part at least,” Gert van der Graaf, ABBA singer Agnetha Faltskog’s boyfriend-turned-stalker declared in 2023 documentary Take A Chance.
And in what’s bound to be chilling news for the 74-year-old star, the Dutch warehouse worker has been spotted back in Sweden after he was convicted of harassing her, served with a restraining order in 2000 and again in 2003 and deported back to his native Holland.
“Agnetha must be scared,” commented one fan.
COMING HOME?
According to reports, 58-year-old Gert was recently seen holidaying in the Swedish city of Nykoping and is considering relocating permanently to the country when he retires. “It feels like I’ve come home. I want her [Agnetha] to live her life and feel free. I want to move on with my life too.”
But just last year, Gert revealed of Agnetha, “I miss her. It keeps spinning around in my head. It comes back, again and again. It might be something I can never give up, not until my last breath.
“She said she was glad that I never stopped looking for her. Then I never stop.”
But Agnetha clearly wants him to. She wrote Gert a stern letter in 1999 asking him to no longer contact her and when he didn’t take it well, she became concerned for her safety.
And she had reason to be worried. On Christmas Eve, 1999, Gert showed up at the singer’s house. “I entered her property with all the security equipment. I know it wasn’t right. But I really wanted to see her. Then the police arrested me saying she feared for her life. I would never want to hurt her,” he says.
But the singer claimed in a statement to the court during Gert’s 2000 trial that her life became “considerably restricted” and she didn’t “dare go outside without being accompanied by a neighbour”.
She also told the trial Gert wrote her over 300 letters from 1997 to 1999, he called one to three times a day and followed her everywhere.
Friends say the ordeal is a big reason the star has largely lived as a recluse in recent years.
STAYING SILENT
She’s also remained resolutely tight-lipped about the ordeal. “I don’t know if I can talk about that. I don’t think I will,” says the grandmother-of-four.
Gert has been diagnosed with erotomania, a rare psychotic condition which invokes a belief that someone – usually of a superior standing – is in love with you.
Gert claims he met Agnetha after he wrote a letter to her while he was in hospital after an accident and then she came to visit him.
The forklift driver says Agnetha was the first woman he slept with and describes their relationship as a “fairytale”.
While his story was doubted initially, Agnetha has admitted to dating him. “It was a very intense attention from him and after a while I felt I could not resist any more. I wanted to know him,” she said of her decision to start dating Gert in 1997.
They were together for two years before she called it quits in a decision that Gert allegedly still hasn’t accepted. “I got angry,” he now admits. “I love her very much.”
