My Skarsgård is widely recognized as the first wife of Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård and the mother of several internationally known performers, including Alexander, Bill, Gustaf, and Valter Skarsgård. Away from the spotlight, she has spent her life as a physician and, later, as an addiction counselor who openly discusses her own recovery from alcoholism.
Early Life and Background
My Skarsgård was born on July 3, 1956, in Kalmar, a coastal city on Sweden’s southeastern shore. Detailed information about her childhood and family of origin has not been widely published, and unverified claims about her upbringing circulate online without reliable sourcing, so this article does not repeat them.What is consistently documented is that she pursued a career in medicine as a young woman, eventually training and working as a physician in Sweden, a path that would remain central to her identity even as her family became known worldwide through acting.
Her decision to build a career in healthcare set her apart from the more artistic and theatrical world she would later marry into. While her former husband and several of her children became known for their work in film and television, My Skarsgård’s own professional foundation stayed rooted in science and patient care, a distinction that has often been highlighted in profiles of the family.
READ MORE: Who Is Eija Skarsgård? Stellan Skarsgård’s Daughter
Marriage to Stellan Skarsgård
My Skarsgård married actor Stellan Skarsgård in 1975. At the time, Stellan was already an established performer in Swedish television and theater, having begun his acting career as a teenager in the late 1960s. The couple settled in Stockholm and built a household that would, over the following decades, become one of the most recognized families in European and later Hollywood cinema.
Their first child, Alexander, was born on August 25, 1976, in Stockholm. The couple went on to have five more children together over the years that followed. My Skarsgård and Stellan Skarsgård remained married for roughly three decades, a period during which Stellan’s acting career expanded internationally while My continued her work in medicine and raised their large family.
The marriage ended in divorce in 2007, closing a chapter that had lasted more than thirty years. Stellan Skarsgård later remarried, wedding producer Megan Everett in 2009. Stellan and Megan have two children together, Ossian and Kolbjörn, giving My Skarsgård’s own six children two younger half-siblings. Despite the divorce, both My and Stellan have continued to be present in their children’s lives, and their sons have spoken publicly and respectfully about both parents in interviews over the years.
Career as a Physician and Addiction Counselor
My Skarsgård trained and worked as a medical doctor, practicing in the Stockholm area, including in the Södermalm district of the city. Her career in medicine ran parallel to her family life, and she has generally kept the specifics of her professional postings out of public reporting, preferring a private approach to her working life even as her family drew increasing media attention.
In interviews given by her children, My Skarsgård has been described as someone who lived with alcohol addiction for a significant part of the years she spent raising her family. She has since become sober, with public acknowledgment in 2016 that she had reached ten years of sobriety, placing the start of her recovery around 2006. Her son Bill Skarsgård spoke about this openly in a 2024 interview with Esquire, saying his mother had been through a great deal and expressing pride in how she had rebuilt her life. He noted that she had devoted herself to helping other recovering alcoholics and addicts, a struggle she had lived through herself.
Following her recovery, My Skarsgård trained as an addiction and recovery therapist. She worked with treatment centers before developing her own approach to recovery support, which she calls the MyLife method, drawing on established research, professional practice, and her personal experience with addiction. She has continued this counseling work in Sweden, leading sobriety courses and supporting others going through recovery, work that her family has described as a defining part of who she is today.
Alongside medicine and counseling, My Skarsgård has occasionally appeared on screen. She had a role in the 1987 Swedish film Jim & Piraterna Blom and made guest appearances on Swedish television programs including Gomorron and Efter Tio. These appearances were not the center of her career, but they connect her to the entertainment world that her children would later enter far more prominently.
Six Children and the Skarsgård Family
My Skarsgård and Stellan Skarsgård had six children together: Alexander, Gustaf, Sam, Bill, Eija, and Valter Skarsgård. Several of them followed their father into acting, while others chose different paths.
Alexander Skarsgård, the eldest, became internationally known for playing Eric Northman in HBO’s True Blood and later for roles including The Northman. Gustaf Skarsgård gained wide recognition for his role in the television series Vikings. Bill Skarsgård became a global name after playing Pennywise in the IT film franchise and has continued to build a career in film. Valter Skarsgård has also pursued acting, appearing in Swedish and international productions.
Not all of My Skarsgård’s children work in entertainment. Sam Skarsgård followed his mother’s path into medicine and has worked as a physician, making him the one sibling who most directly continued her professional legacy. Eija Skarsgård, My and Stellan’s only daughter, has likewise stayed outside the acting industry that has defined much of the rest of the family’s public image.
The size and success of the Skarsgård family has made it a frequent subject of media coverage, particularly as multiple sons became prominent actors around the same period. Family members, including Alexander and Valter, have spoken in interviews about growing up in a household shaped by both their father’s demanding acting career and their mother’s struggles and eventual recovery from addiction, describing a childhood that was creative and close-knit but not without difficulty.
Life After Divorce and Recovery
After her divorce from Stellan Skarsgård in 2007, My Skarsgård continued to build her life around medicine and, increasingly, her counseling work with people recovering from addiction. Her sobriety, which she has publicly dated to around 2006, coincided with this period of transition in her personal life, and she has described her recovery and her professional turn toward addiction therapy as deeply connected.
Rather than stepping back from public life entirely, she has spoken periodically, including through social media, about her sobriety and the work she does to support others. Her sons have echoed this in interviews, framing her recovery as something the family is proud of rather than something to be hidden.This openness has shaped how she is discussed publicly: less as a celebrity spouse and more as someone whose personal story of recovery has become part of her professional identity.
She has continued to live in Sweden, maintaining her connection to Stockholm, where she raised her children and built her career. While her sons’ fame has brought recurring media attention to the family, My Skarsgård herself has generally stayed outside the entertainment press, appearing mainly in profiles that focus on her children or on Stellan Skarsgård’s family history.
Public Image and Privacy
Despite her connection to one of the most recognizable acting families in the world, My Skarsgård has kept a notably private public profile. She does not appear to actively seek media coverage, and detailed, verified information about her day-to-day life remains limited compared with the extensive coverage given to her children’s careers.
Much of what is publicly known about her comes through interviews given by her sons, particularly Alexander, Bill, and Valter, who have spoken about their mother’s medical career, her struggles with alcohol, and her later work in addiction recovery.This has given the public a picture of her that is shaped largely by her family’s own words rather than by direct media access to her.
Her combination of a medical career, a long marriage to a major actor, six children with widely varying paths, and a personal recovery story that she has chosen to share selectively has made her a subject of ongoing curiosity. At the same time, she has managed to keep the more granular details of her personal life away from constant public scrutiny, a balance that stands in contrast to the high visibility of several of her sons.
Conclusion
My Skarsgård’s life extends well beyond her marriage to Stellan Skarsgård. She built a career in medicine, raised six children with widely different paths in life, lived through and recovered from alcohol addiction, and turned that experience into work helping others do the same. While the fame of her sons has brought her name into wider public conversation, the verified facts of her own story point to a life defined by medicine, recovery, and family rather than celebrity itself.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is My Skarsgård?
She is a Swedish physician and addiction counselor, known as the first wife of actor Stellan Skarsgård and the mother of six children, several of whom became actors.
When was My Skarsgård born?
She was born on July 3, 1956, in Kalmar, Sweden.
When did she marry and divorce Stellan Skarsgård?
She married Stellan Skarsgård in 1975, and the couple divorced in 2007 after roughly three decades of marriage.
How many children does My Skarsgård have?
She has six children with Stellan Skarsgård: Alexander, Gustaf, Sam, Bill, Eija, and Valter Skarsgård.
What does My Skarsgård do for work?
She trained and worked as a medical doctor and later became an addiction and recovery therapist, developing her own recovery approach known as the MyLife method after achieving her own sobriety.
