Swedish Royal wedding called off over infidelity with Bournemouth student
A Bournemouth student emerged this weekend as the unlikely wedge that drove apart a princess and her playboy fiancé, ending one of Europe’s most glamorous royal romances.
The wedding of Princess Madeleine of Sweden and Jonas Bergstrom, a lawyer, was called off on Saturday after Tora Uppstrom Berg, a 21-year-old photography student at Arts University College Bournemouth, claimed that she had had an affair with the prince-to-be.
“They have decided that the best for them is to go their separate ways,” the palace said in a statement, bringing to an end an engagement that reportedly began with a proposal in front of most of the Swedish Royal Family at their summer home.
Ms Uppstrom Berg, who was a Norwegian handball star before coming to Britain, told a magazine that she had slept with Mr Bergstrom, 31, while on holiday at an exclusive Swedish ski resort in February last year, six months before his engagement to the princess was announced.
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“I had an affair with Maddie’s boyfriend. We were intimate. He followed me home in a taxi at four o’clock in the morning ... He was extremely nice and a gentleman all night long,” she told a Norwegian magazine.
She was paid only 12,500 Norwegian kroner (£1,380) for her story, not a large amount for a scandal that has rocked Sweden’s relatively stable royal establishment.
Ms Uppstrom Berg said that Mr Bergstrom, who has a high profile in Scandinavia because of his eight-year relationship with the Princess, concealed his identity when he met her, at the age of 20. It was only when she called his mobile and listened to his voicemail that she realised who he was and his connection to the third-in-line to the Swedish throne.
“Had I known that he had a woman I would never have done anything like this,” she said. “I feel sorry for Madeleine who has an unfaithful man. She deserves better.”
The interview sent the Scandinavian press scrambling to get a glimpse of the woman responsible for derailing the much anticipated royal wedding and reporters and photographers have descended on Bournemouth. So far Ms Uppstrom Berg has eluded the eager press pack, and successfully disappeared, said one classmate. “I have not seen her for a while now.”
“Perhaps she is spending the money [from the interview],” said another.
Back in Sweden, she has been vilified by some. In other quarters, however, she has been hailed as having done the country a service by exposing Mr Bergstrom’s infidelity before the marriage.
Within 24 hours of the break-up being announced, a Facebook group called “Tora Uppstrom Berg, thanks for the taxpayer’s money you saved us” attracted nearly 100 members