Ari Behn

Behn's father met his biological father, Terje Erling Ingebrigtsen (1933–2009), a retired car mechanic from Tromsø, for the first time, but Ingebrigtsen died before Behn had a chance to meet him.

Ari Mikael Behn (, or ; 30 September 1972 – 25 December 2019) was a Norwegian author, playwright, and visual artist, best known for his marriage to Princess Märtha Louise of Norway from 2002 to 2017.

He held no title or special status, and he remained a private citizen during the marriage.

Behn was born as Ari Mikael Bjørshol in 1972 in Aarhus, Denmark, to Olav Bjørshol (b. 1952) and Marianne Rafaela Solberg (b. 1953), Norwegians who were both Waldorf teachers and who married in 1973.

The family lived in Aarhus, then in Plymouth, England, where his father trained as a photographer, and then in Tennevoll in Northern Norway where his mother worked as a teacher at the local school from 1977 to 1978.

In 1978 the family settled in Moss in South Norway.

Bjørshol was baptized and confirmed in The Christian Community and attended the Waldorf School in Moss from 1979.

In 1983, his parents divorced and married a couple who had been among their friends, Jan Pahle and Tone Bjerke, who had previously been married to each other.

Tone Bjerke had family connections to several prominent cultural figures; she was the daughter of the well-known poet André Bjerke, and her extended family included people like writer Jens Bjørneboe (father's cousin), actress Henny Moan (stepmother) and singer Ole Paus (stepmother's new partner).

In the 1990s, he studied history and religion at the University of Oslo, from which he received a bachelor's degree.

Behn's original surname was Bjørshol and he was known by family and during his childhood and youth under the given name Mikael.

Behn was a founding member of Den Nye Vinen ("The New Wine"), an anarchist artist collective announced in Oslo in 1993 that included Bertrand Bisigye, Henning Braathen, and Per Heimly.

Known as Mikael Bjørshol until 1996, Behn achieved modest literary success with his 1999 short story collection Trist som faen ("Sad as hell") which received several favorable reviews in Norwegian newspapers, and which remains his best known work.

In 1996, he changed his name to Ari Behn when he took his maternal grandmother's maiden name.

The name Behn has German origin.

He had two younger siblings, Anja Sabrina and Espen, neither of whom use the name Behn.

Behn achieved literary success in Norway with his first collection of short stories, titled Trist som faen ("Sad as hell"), in 1999.

His work received several good reviews and sold more than 100,000 copies.

As an author he is best known for his first book; he subsequently published four other novels to more mixed reviews.

In the 2000s and 2010s his public activity and art were met with mixed reactions in Norway, and Behn acknowledged that many people regarded him as a "fool" and an amateur artist.

In the 2000s his parents divorced Pahle and Bjerke, and they married each other for the second time in 2007.

Following his 2002 marriage to Märtha Louise, he wrote four novels, two short story collections, one play and a book about his wedding, although his later work received less favorable reviews than Trist som faen.

He took part in other creative and artistic endeavours such as the design of a china set named "Peacock".

Together with his wife, Princess Märtha, Behn wrote a book about their wedding in 2002.

He also participated in various creative projects, for example, the design of a china set named "Peacock" for Magnor Glassverk, and he was a model for a clothing chain.

He also made TV documentaries, including a critical documentary on the Afghanistan War in 2002, titled Øst for krigen – invitert av Taliban.

Behn appeared in the comedy films Team Antonsen in 2004 and Long Flat Balls in 2006.

He was a freelance writer for several newspapers and magazines.

In 2009, it was made public that Behn's de jure paternal grandfather, the Tromsø lawyer Bjarne Nikolai Bjørshol, was not his biological grandfather.

In 2011, he co-hosted the award-winning TV series Ari og Per on NRK with his friend Per Heimly.

The appeal of one episode of the show was attributed, in part, to the willingness of Behn and Heimly to be authentic and vulnerable participants on camera at an Ängsbacka festival.

Behn was also a playwright; his first play, Treningstimen ("The Training Hour") debuted in 2011.

Although the play was reported to have received a standing ovation from the audience on opening night, reviews overall were mixed.

From 2013 until his death he was active as a visual artist, painting in a neo-expressionist tradition inspired by Jean-Michel Basquiat.

Behn and Heimly appeared together on a later TV program, "Ari and Per Solve World Problems" on TVNorge in 2013.

From 2013 until his death in 2019, Behn was active as a painter in a neo-expressionist tradition; he cited Jean-Michel Basquiat as his most important inspiration.

Behn's artwork, described as "highly narrative", was widely exhibited internationally in 2017–18.

As a painter he achieved commercial success by Norwegian standards, and sold paintings for 5.7 million NOK in 2018.

Behn exhibited his work internationally, including at Gabba Gallery's exhibit Borderless: Scandinavia in Los Angeles in 2018.

His engagement to Märtha Louise sparked additional interest in the book, and by 2020 it had sold a total of nearly 100,000 copies since publication.