KK Editor Ingeborg Heldal on Love & Life After 25 Years
Oslo, Norway – Ingeborg Heldal, the chief editor of Norway’s leading women’s magazine, KK, recounted a particularly clumsy, yet formative, moment in her courtship with her now-husband, Halvor Haugen, in a recent interview published by the magazine. The anecdote, part of a new recurring feature titled “What I Know About Love,” highlights the often-unromantic reality of finding connection.
Heldal, 52, described tripping and falling even as attempting to impress Haugen at a bar approximately 25 years ago. “I tried to charm my husband before we were properly acquainted… with to go so seductively and sexy across the floor in the bar towards him with two beers to show that I was the type of girl who bought beers just like that out of the blue,” she said. “But there is nothing sexy about the way I walk, and I ended up hooking my foot in a bag someone had thrown away, tripping and falling so long I was and splashing beer all over everyone. Very silly, romantic comedy-like. And not least incredibly embarrassing at the time.”
The interview, published on February 14, 2026, delves into Heldal’s perspectives on love, loss, and the sustaining of long-term relationships. She acknowledged the all-consuming nature of first love, recalling the “total absorption” and tendency to overanalyze every detail. “It was terribly exhausting, and didn’t end well,” she admitted.
However, Heldal expressed a deep sense of contentment in her current relationship with Haugen, a journalist for NRK, and with their son, Håkon, 192cm tall. She described feeling most loved when Håkon embraces her and when she returns home after a long perform week to discover Haugen cooking dinner while dancing to music. “He doesn’t describe himself as romantic, but he does romantic things all the time,” Heldal noted, recounting a recent instance where Haugen secretly purchased a whimsical porcelain lamp in the shape of Marie Antoinette that she had admired in a vintage shop.
Heldal, who gained public recognition in 1999 after a brief interaction with then-US President Bill Clinton during a visit to Oslo, offered advice for maintaining love. “You have to make active choices and want it every single day, even when the days are gray and dreary and romance isn’t exactly blooming,” she stated. “Be generous, let small irritations go, acknowledge that close relationships aren’t always easy to be good, avoid unnecessary arguments and kiss each other every day.”
Born and raised in Brøttum, Heldal has been editor-in-chief of KK since 2017, following a career that included roles at NRK, and Cosmopolitan. She also studied journalism at the Norwegian Journalism College in Oslo. The “What I Know About Love” column will continue to feature interviews with prominent figures discussing their experiences with love and relationships.