Have you ever wondered about the woman who raised some of Hollywood’s most famous actors? She is a Swedish doctor named My Skarsgård, and the mother of Alexander, Gustaf, Sam, Bill, Eija, and Valter Skarsgård.
Most people find her name while looking up her famous children or her former husband, actor Stellan Skarsgård. But she has her own story too, one built on hard work, honesty, and a real fight to beat addiction.
She rarely talks to the press. Still, her sons have opened up about her over the years, and their words show a strong, caring, and deeply respected mother. Here is the full and true story of Stellan Skarsgård’s first wife.
Profile Overview
| Category | Details |
|---|---|
| Full Name | My Sonja Marie Agnes Skarsgård |
| Born | July 3, 1956 |
| Birthplace | Kalmar, Sweden |
| Nationality | Swedish |
| Profession | Medical doctor, addiction and drug therapist |
| Former Spouse | Stellan Skarsgård (married 1975, divorced 2007) |
| Children | Alexander, Gustaf, Sam, Bill, Eija, and Valter Skarsgård |
| Education | Karolinska Institute, Stockholm (1986 to 1998) |
| Known For | Mother of the Skarsgård acting family, recovery from alcoholism, founder of the MyLife method |
Who Is My Skarsgård?
My Skarsgård is a Swedish doctor known around the world as the mother of actors Alexander and Bill Skarsgård, and as the first wife of actor Stellan Skarsgård. Her other children, Gustaf and Valter, also became actors. Sam, another son, chose medicine instead, following in her footsteps. Eija, her only daughter, works behind the camera in casting.
What makes her story special is not just her famous family. She earned a medical degree while raising six kids, then later faced a hard battle with alcohol. She has been open about that struggle through her children’s interviews, even though she rarely speaks to reporters herself.
Today, she works as an addiction and drug therapist. She helps people walk the same road to sobriety that she once walked herself. Her children speak about her with real pride, not because of her famous last name, but because of what she overcame.
She lives a quiet life away from cameras and red carpets. That choice has made her a bit of a mystery to fans of the Skarsgård family. But the parts of her story that have come out, mostly through her own sons, show a woman of real strength.
Growing Up in Kalmar
My Skarsgård was born on July 3, 1956, in Kalmar, a coastal city in southern Sweden known for its old castle and calm streets. Very little has been shared about her parents or her childhood home. This kind of privacy has stayed with her through her whole life, long before she became linked to a famous family.
Before she thought about medicine, she trained as a fritidspedagog, the Swedish word for a recreation pedagogue. This job means helping children learn and grow through play and simple activities. It shows that caring for others was part of her path from an early age, well before she picked up a stethoscope.
She once thought about becoming a vet. That plan changed once she started a family. The vet program was in Uppsala, and getting there while raising young kids with a husband who worked odd hours proved too hard. So she chose a different path in medicine instead, one that would shape the rest of her working life.
Her early years were not filled with public attention. She was simply a young Swedish woman who wanted to help people, long before anyone outside her circle knew the name Skarsgård.
Marrying Stellan Skarsgård and Starting a Family
My Skarsgård married actor Stellan Skarsgård in 1975. Some sources list the wedding year as 1976, but 1975 is the date most often repeated across records of their life together. At the time, Stellan was already gaining attention in Swedish television, having started acting as a teenager.
Their life together moved fast. His acting career often meant travel, new cities, and long stretches of unpredictable work. She supported the family through these years while also working toward her own medical degree, a balancing act that would stretch on for over a decade.
The couple welcomed their first child, Alexander Skarsgård, on August 25, 1976, in Stockholm. Five more children followed over the next two decades: Gustaf, born in 1980, Sam, born in 1982, Bill, born in 1990, Eija, born in 1992, and Valter, the youngest, born in 1995.
Alexander later described their childhood home as full of artists and big personalities. He told Stellan during a 2025 talk for Variety that he once dreamed of a more normal family, joking about wanting a father with “a briefcase” instead of a tote bag from India. That mix, a bohemian household paired with a mother trained in medicine, shaped all six children.
Years of Medical School While Raising Six Children
Becoming a doctor is hard for anyone. She did it while raising six children and supporting a husband whose acting career kept the family on the move. Her medical studies at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm stretched from 1986 to 1998, a full twelve years, much longer than a normal medical program.
The reason for the long timeline is simple. She kept giving birth to more children during her studies, and she often traveled with Stellan for his film work abroad. Each new baby or move meant pausing her studies and starting again later. That kind of patience takes real strength.
She finally earned her medical degree in 1998. It should have been a moment of pure joy. Instead, just weeks before her graduation, she got a diagnosis that would change her life again.
Her son Alexander has spoken with real pride about this part of her story. In an interview with Interview Magazine, he said their family had many artists, musicians, and writers, but his mother and one of his brothers were the exceptions. They became doctors instead, and that clearly means something to him.
A Cancer Diagnosis and a Battle With Alcohol
Around the time she finished medical school, she was diagnosed with cervical cancer. The fear that came with it was intense. To cope with that fear, she started drinking, and over time, what began as a way to manage stress turned into a serious struggle with alcohol that lasted for years.
This was a hard time for the whole family. Her son Valter Skarsgård, speaking on the podcast Nemo meets a friend, said his mother’s addiction shaped his whole personality, since it ran through almost his entire childhood. His brother Gustaf Skarsgård has also spoken about his own struggle with alcohol, starting at age 12 and lasting until he was 30.
Valter has said that watching both his mother and his brother go through addiction gave him an early, honest view of alcohol, instead of any idea that drinking was glamorous. He credited his siblings with being a major support during those years, since their father was often away working and their mother was dealing with her own illness.
She reached her lowest point on December 20, 2006, when she went to her brother’s apartment to drink and hid in a wardrobe to avoid being found. She was discovered soon after and entered detox and treatment at Nämndemansgården, a treatment center in Skåne. That moment marked the start of her recovery.
Finding Sobriety and Becoming a Therapist
She has been sober since 2006. By 2016, she had reached ten years without a drink, a milestone she shared on Facebook. By 2020, she had passed twelve years of sobriety, a number that shows steady, ongoing work rather than one single turning point.
After getting sober, she trained further as an alcohol and drug therapist. She worked with treatment centers for several years, including the same Nämndemansgården facility where she once went through detox herself. Her medical background gave her a clear understanding of addiction, while her own recovery gave her something no textbook could teach.
Over time, she created her own approach to recovery called the MyLife method. It blends current research on addiction with the lessons she learned from living through it. This method now forms the base of the sobriety courses she leads today.
Her work reaches directly into her own family. Valter has said he took her sobriety course himself, even before he started drinking, simply because he wanted to understand what she had been through.
What Her Children Say About Her
Her children speak about her with clear respect. Bill Skarsgård told Esquire in 2024 that his mother had gone through a lot, adding that he was proud of who she is today because she has spent her life helping recovering alcoholics and addicts, something she went through herself.
Alexander Skarsgård has praised her more than once. When he won an Emmy, he thanked her directly in his speech, saying it meant a lot that she flew all the way from Stockholm to be there, and jokingly thanked her for giving birth to him. It was a small joke, but it carried real warmth.
Sam Skarsgård chose a path close to his mother’s own. He works in an intensive care unit, a job Alexander once described simply as saving lives every day. Bill added that there is a kind of humility that comes from having a mother and a brother whose work involves something as serious as medicine, compared to the world of film and acting.
Even Stellan has spoken warmly about their daughter Eija. He told The Guardian in 2015 that during each of his later pregnancies with his second wife, Eija would say she hoped the new baby was not a girl. He called her stronger in many ways than her brothers, someone who enjoys her place as the only daughter in a large family of sons.
Divorce From Stellan Skarsgård
The marriage ended in 2007, after more than three decades together. Neither of them has ever fully explained the reason for the split in public. What is known is that the years leading up to the divorce overlapped with her struggle with alcohol and her early years of recovery.
Stellan remarried in 2009, to producer Megan Everett, with whom he has two more sons, Ossian and Kolbjörn Skarsgård. She has not remarried publicly and has kept her personal life private.
Even after the divorce, the family has stayed close. Alexander told the New York Times in 2022 that the Skarsgårds are still “a very tight group,” with most of the siblings living within two blocks of each other in South Stockholm. Their mother remains part of major family moments even decades after the marriage ended.
Her Life Today
As of 2026, My Skarsgård is 70 years old and still works as an addiction and drug therapist in Sweden. She stays mostly out of the public eye, letting her children speak for the family in interviews while she focuses on her practice and the people she helps through the MyLife method.
She remains close to her six children and their growing families. Her daughter Eija, who works in casting for Swedish television, has shared warm moments with her mother on social media over the years, including a family trip photographed together in Toronto. Several of her children have started their own families, giving her a role as grandmother alongside her work as a therapist.
Her exact net worth has never been confirmed through any public record, so any number found online should be treated as a guess, not a fact. What is documented, and what matters more, is the path she built through medicine, motherhood, and recovery.
Final Thoughts
Her story is not really about fame. It is about a woman who trained as a doctor while raising six children, faced a serious illness, fell into addiction, and found her way back through hard, honest work. Then she chose to spend her life helping other people do the same.
Her children became known around the world through film, medicine, and creative work. But the values behind that success, honesty, strength, and care for other people, trace back to her. Her sons have said so themselves, more than once, in their own words.
In the end, she shows that the most meaningful legacy is not always the one that gets the most attention. Sometimes it is simply the courage to face a hard truth, get better, and spend the rest of your life helping someone else do the same.
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