As he prepares to take the throne as King of Denmark, scandalous details of Crown Prince Frederik’s wild youth have re-emerged.
Before the handsome prince met Tasmanian-born former real estate agent Mary Donaldson in a Sydney bar during the Olympic Games in 2000, he was widely known as the ‘Casanova Crown Prince’.
His playboy lifestyle involved fast sports cars, lavish travel around the globe, frequent nightclub visits, and a long list of girlfriends including lingerie models and pop stars.
Most weeks, his antics were splashed across newspapers and tabloid magazines in Denmark, where he was labelled a “spoiled brat” who was unlikely to make a stable and settled future king.
Concerns were also raised about his lavish spending, with hundreds of thousands of dollars blown each year on his lifestyle.
Back then, few in the royal establishment believed Prince Frederik was capable of inheriting the throne – including his concerned parents.
Long list of unsuitable partners
For three years in his early 20s, Prince Frederik dated model Malou Aamund but the Royal Household was said to have forced him to break off the relationship after scandal erupted.
On New Year’s Eve in 1992, the couple was travelling in one of the prince’s sports cars when pulled over by police for driving erratically.
Aamund, who was behind the wheel, was arrested and charged with driving under the influence. The Royal Household issued an apology on behalf of Prince Frederik.
A few years later, he met and began dating lingerie model Katja Storkholm and was instantly “head over heels”, reports at the time claimed.
In one unauthorised biography, it was suggested Storkholm coached Prince Frederik on his royal duties as heir to the throne, helped write his speeches, and encouraged him to lean into his future.
It was claimed he secretly proposed but the Queen forbid him from marrying the model. The relationship ended shortly after.
And in the year before his fateful meeting with Mary in Australia, he was linked to Danish pop star-turned actress Maria Montell – another partner who his parents did not approve of.
It has been claimed there was an overlap between the two girlfriends – something his future bride was reportedly aware of at the time.
Back in 2018, a scandalous feature film was developed, plotting the apparent younger years of Prince Frederik including wild sex scenes with models.
A leaked script detailing the romps went off like a bomb in Denmark and according to reports, Princess Mary was upset by the revelations.
The show’s director Christian Tafdrup described it as “a great story about a young man who isn’t allowed to be who he wants to be”.
However, he indicated there was a fair amount of dramatisation involved in a story that was “based” on true events.
“I understand that the palace may not want me to do this film, but my intention isn’t to be rude – I’m interested in creating fiction based on facts,” Tafdrup said.
“It’s a universal story about what it’s like to be a young man coming of age, set in a royal environment – it’s definitely not a royal soap opera.”
Much of his rebellion was said to be sparked by an early unwillingness to one day be king, causing a tense relationship with his mother, Queen Margrethe.
Gitte Redder, a commentator on the Danish royal family, once told AFP that Prince Frederik’s childhood was also marred by resentment of his parents’ duties, which came first before raising him and younger brother Prince Joachim.
“As a child and young man, he was very uncomfortable with the media attention and the knowledge that he was going to be king,” Redder said.
Taming the playboy – mostly
After Prince Frederik met Mary Donaldson in Sydney in 2000, the pair maintained a long-distance relationship for more than a year.
In one interview about their chance encounter, Princess Mary recalled that she had no idea who the handsome young European was.
“The first time we met we shook hands,” she said. “I didn’t know he was the prince of Denmark. Half an hour later someone came up to me and said: ‘Do you know who these people are?’”
In 2001, she relocated to Copenhagen after the Queen gave her blessing and threw herself into language lessons to become fluent in Danish.
She began appearing with members of the royal family, including the Queen, and cemented herself as a calming presence in her beau’s life.
The pair wed in 2004 in a glittering ceremony, and vision of Prince Frederik weeping as he watched his bride walk down the aisle warmed hearts across the globe.
At a reception later that day, Prince Frederik delivered an incredibly emotional speech praising his wife and vowing to “protect her with all my heart”.
He recounted their meeting four years earlier with fondness.
“I found myself in an unknown country among happy, festive foreigners.
“I had only been in Australia two days before our fates were sealed, even though neither of us was aware of it. But your radiance shone clearly for me from our very first meeting.
“Since then, I have been blinded by it and totally dependent on it. “I love you Mary. Come, let us go, come let us see. Throughout a thousand worlds, weightless love awaits.
“The joy and the strength you give me is like the sun in the daytime which, with its radiance, melts all doubts and darkness on earth.
“And like the moon at night, you shine with a watchful and delicate beam of gentleness, which extinguishes the mischief and deceit used by the symbols of darkness.”
But even after his marriage to Princess Mary, those buried youthful wild ways occasionally bubbled to the surface once more – reportedly to the frustration of his wife.
In 2008 as the Olympic Games wrapped up in Beijing, he saw off Princess Mary from the Chinese capital and stayed back to party with mates.
A group descended on a local nightclub for a Playboy themed shindig, complete with scantily clad models in bunny ears and plenty of booze.
According to reports in Danish tabloids at the time, royal bodyguards were forced to intervene and drag a heavily intoxicated Prince Frederik off the dancefloor at about 3am, returning him to a hotel.
The following year, a tell-all book by author Trine Villemann was released, claiming that Prince Frederik’s heavy drinking had become a bugbear in his marriage.
In 2011, he was filmed dancing in a Copenhagen nightclub with a mystery blonde just days before his twins were due to be christened.
Another report claimed that while Princess Mary was still pregnant with the twins, Prince Frederik rocked up to an unsavoury nightspot in the Danish capital famed for its topless dancers and dwarf bartenders.
Tabloid magazine Se og Hor claimed he seemed intoxicated when he entered the club at 1.30am and “as the clock approached 3am, the crown prince got more and more drunk and he insisted on dancing.
“It was as if Frederik had forgotten that he is the father of two – soon four – and that Mary sat at home, pregnant and alone.”
Why the Queen is bowing out
Royal commentators have speculated that Queen Margrethe’s shock abdication, announced on New Year’s Eve and set to become official on January 14, making way for King Frederik and Queen Mary, was a “shrewd” bid to save his marriage.
Rumours of an affair between the prince and Mexican socialite Genoveva Casanova emerged late last year, sending shockwaves through the Royal Household and casting the 19-year marriage in a damning new light.
Prince Frederik and Ms Casanova were snapped by paparazzi gallivanting through Madrid, visiting a gallery, enjoying a long dinner together, and attending a flamenco show.
They returned to her apartment in the Spanish city and remained there until the early hours, a tabloid report claimed.
Ms Casanova rubbished the reports and described talk of an affair as “malicious” and untrue, threatening to sue the magazine at the centre of the claims.
“I think Margrethe may have worried that their marriage was in trouble and therefore she had to act,” royal biographer Phil Dampier told the Daily Mail.
“I can’t help thinking that it has something to do with the recent rumours about Crown Prince Frederik spending a night with a Mexican socialite.
“The Queen always thought Mary was a fantastic asset to the royal family and if she thought she might leave it would have been a disaster. She will now hope that Frederik and Mary patch up any differences and work together as the new king and queen.”