Dolph Lundgren Has One Of The Biggest Age-Gap Relationships In Hollywood Right Now

Most people are familiar with Dolph Lundgren thanks to his breakout role in "Rocky IV" in 1985. The Swedish actor quickly launched a successful career playing intense characters in many memorable films. A few include "Masters of the Universe," "Showdown in Little Tokyo," "The Expendables," and "Creed II," in which he reprised his "Rocky IV" role as Ivan Drago. These days, Lundgren is still working, but his personal life is also thriving thanks to his wife Emma Krokdal, whom he married in 2023. The two seem super happy, but there has been a lot of talk surrounding them due to the fact that Krokdal is almost 40 years younger than the '80s action star and the same age as his eldest daughter. 

Lundgren and Krokdal haven't been able to truly get away from the gossip, but thankfully, they still seem to be doing well. The former has repeatedly defended his wife and their age gap, telling Fox News Digital in an interview, "To me, age is just a number. It doesn't really matter. I mean we're all gonna be dead a hundred years from now — most of us anyway — and nothing will matter." Relationships with large age gaps are also quite common in Hollywood. In another conversation, Lundgren admitted on "In Depth with Graham Bensinger" that his age difference with his wife is "severe," but to him, Krokdal is much more mature than people might think upon learning how young she is. He declared that he has dated "people that are twice her age [who are] less mature than she is." It's certainly a strong statement about his wife's character. 

The couple originally met in 2019 at a gym, where Krokdal often worked as a personal trainer. The two quickly hit it off, and Lundgren and Krokdal were engaged the next year. Three years later, they tied the knot in Greece, and they've been going strong ever since.

Dolph Lundgren's difficult cancer ordeal began in 2015 when doctors found a tumor in his kidney. While they were able to remove the tumor and Lundgren received treatment that helped him stay in remission for years, that all changed in 2020. At the time, doctors found other tumors, and Lundgren thought he only had a little time left. He later found out that his cancer was misdiagnosed as kidney cancer when it was really lung cancer, and Lundgren was able to successfully treat it and go into remission again. Luckily, Emma Krokdal was by his side to help him every step of the way. 

In Lundgren's 2026 memoir, "Fights Worth Fighting: Finding Strength in Struggle," he writes of his wife, "Despite the difference in our ages, which I was always aware of, I sometimes felt as though Emma was an angel who had been sent down from heaven to help me. She's a very strong and special person." In an interview with Entertainment Weekly about his documentary, "Dolph: Unbreakable," which covers his cancer journey and more, he noted that there's a lot of footage from the hospital that was taken by Krokdal because it was during COVID, and she was always with him during treatment.

Lundgren praised Krokdal in his memoir and explained how she "had to help me get through all the horrible side effects of the drugs they were using to treat me as well as accompanying me to all my doctor's appointments." Going even further, he added, "To this day, I really don't know how she managed to get through it all without ever losing it herself." Thankfully, both Lundgren and Krokdal made it through the ordeal, and they seem to be doing great now.