KNOWING FRIDA INSIDE HER RAGS TO RICHES STORY

As she turns 80, Woman's Day looks back at the bombshell moments that changed her life

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Just as her band ABBA cooed in their hit song, The Way Old Friends Do, Anni-Frid Lyngstad – or Frida as she's known to millions – has lived a storied life full of “times of joy and times of sorrow”.

In fact, her life has been so tumultuous that even bandmate Bjorn Ulvaeus once claimed her story would serve perfectly as a play or musical.

“Out of all four of us, Frida has had the most dramatic life,” he told the media. “Her life is the classic rags to riches story. I can just picture the scenes and the cliffhangers.”

Now as the iconic hitmaker turns the big 8-0, Woman's Day looks back on her life that has as many crescendos as an ABBA ballad.

CHILDHOOD TRAUMA

Born in Bjorkasen, Norway, in 1945, Frida's tragic story began when her young mother, Synni, fell pregnant with a child by German SS officer Alfred Haase, who had been stationed there during the Nazi occupation.

After he was rumoured to have died on his way back to Germany, Synni was ostracised from her town when people discovered who the father of her “war baby” was.