At 55, Frederik will succeed his mother, Queen Margrethe II, this Sunday, who is retiring after more than half a century on the throne.
As a teenager, Danish Crown Prince Frederik felt uncomfortable in the spotlight and wondered if he could avoid becoming king.
Today, the 55-year-old will become King Frederik
Margrethe stunned the nation when she announced during her traditional New Year’s Eve speech that she was stepping down, citing health reasons.
A royal palace spokeswoman told the Berlingske newspaper that the queen only informed her sons of her decision three days before the announcement.
An athlete, decorated military officer and fan of rock music, Frederik has a more informal style than his mother, but he is just as popular in the Nordic country.
The crown prince, whose full name is Frederik André Henrik Christian, was born on May 26, 1968, the first child of Margrethe and her husband, Prince Henrik, who died in 2018. His younger brother, Prince Joachim, was born in 1969 .
A shy and reserved child, Frederik felt uneasy about ascending the throne, and the intense attention and scrutiny that came with it. In a 1996 interview with Berlingske Tidende, the crown prince said that as a teenager he sometimes wondered if he could escape his fate.
“I thought it was too uncomfortable,” Frederik said. “You knew you were going to be so public, so famous, so available to everyone and so portrayed. I didn’t like that.”
As an adult, he became more comfortable in his position as heir to the throne and prepared for it. Frederik, who speaks not only Danish but also English, French and German, holds a master’s degree in political science from Aarhus University.
He received military training in several branches of the Danish armed forces, including as a diver in an elite naval unit. Frederik received the nickname “Pingo” following an episode where his diving suit filled with water, leaving him waddling like a penguin.
He learned about diplomacy while working at the Danish Embassy in Paris and at the Danish Mission to the United Nations in New York. Like King Charles III of Great Britain, he has taken a particular interest in climate change and other environmental issues.
At home in Denmark, Frederik is known for being informal and down-to-earth. While he attends official ceremonies in a uniform adorned with medals, he can sometimes be seen blending into the crowd by cycling with his bodyguards or shaking hands with teenagers.
A great sportsman, Frederik has participated in six marathons, an Ironman triathlon and a dog sledding expedition in northern Greenland. For several years he was a Danish member of the International Olympic Committee.
Some Danes feel so comfortable with the crown prince that they address him without his royal title.
Like many of his contemporaries from the royal houses of Europe, Frederik married a commoner outside the aristocracy. He met Mary Donaldson, born in Australia and the daughter of Scottish immigrants, in a bar during the 2000 Sydney Olympics. They married four years later.
The couple had four children: Prince Christian, 18, Princess Isabella, 16, and 13-year-old twins Prince Vincent and Princess Josephine.
After Margrethe’s abdication, Christian will take the title of crown prince and become the first to succeed his father.
Mary will become Queen of Denmark. Her improbable journey from the island of Tasmania to becoming the first Australian-born queen on the other side of the world has captivated Danes and Australians.
When Frederik turned 50, Mary praised her husband in a romantic and witty speech, delivered in fluent Danish. “You always pushed the boundaries and insisted that the world around you fit you and you did not allow the structures of this world to define you”Mary said.