Queen Margrethe II
After 66 years, she no longer smokes
Queen Margrethe II has smoked since she was 17 years old.
© imago/Future Image
Queen Margrethe II of Denmark no longer smokes. The monarch has quit smoking after 66 years, the palace has confirmed.
Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, 83, has quit smoking. This was confirmed by the head of communications at the Danish court of the Danish magazine “BT”.. “It’s true that the queen hasn’t smoked since her back surgery,” the palace said succinctly. The monarch underwent back surgery at the end of February this year. Previously, she was considered an avid smoker who had never made a secret of her preference for the harmful fags.
Queen Margrethe has smoked since she was 17
Queen Margrethe is said to have favored a filterless Greek cigarette brand for the past 50 years. She started smoking at the age of 17 when her parents, who were also smoking, offered her their first cigarette. The 83-year-old revealed this in her biography “Undervejs” (in German: “On the way”).
Margrethe had also assured “Weekendavisen” in Februarythat she has no intention of quitting smoking. “Now I’m so old that it doesn’t matter anymore,” she said at the time. But apparently her upcoming back surgery led to a change of heart. “As far as back surgery is concerned, there are simply places in Denmark where smokers don’t get operated on because they do worse than non-smokers,” said former chief physician and back specialist Tom Bendix of Rigshospitalet “BT”. Margrethe also underwent her surgery at the Copenhagen hospital earlier this year.