went on to work with megastars including Rodgers,
Madonna, Chris Martin and Wyclef Jean. He was
nominated for two Grammys. Not bad for a boy who
was happiest making music alone in his bedroom.
There were girlfriends along the way. In 2011 he had
met Emily Goldberg, a 21-year-old American student.
After they broke up he met Racquel Bettencourt, a
26-year-old Canadian student and model. They lived
together in California before splitting up in late 2014.
After his death another girlfriend, a model named
Tereza Kacerova, shared a first glimpse into their
relationship, which she said they had chosen to keep
private. “The last words you ever said to me were,
‘I love you’,” she wrote on Instagram.
Klas says this of his son’s relationship status at
the time of his death: “I think he had a girlfriend and
I also think they went their separate ways.” He doesn’t
believe his son was unhappy in his love life. “We had
quite clear discussions about that. I thought he was
very strong in that sense.”
Klas first understood the scale of what his son had
achieved professionally when he went to one of his
sold-out shows at Stockholm’s Ericsson Globe arena
in 2012. “I was sitting by myself because I wanted to
listen to the music. I didn’t want to talk to people or
share drinks — I wanted to sit and listen,” he says. “I
saw the audience’s reception. And it was also the first
time I realised that this music is really good.” Earlier
this year the Globe was renamed the Avicii Arena.
Tim’s rapid ascent to fame surprised his parents,
but didn’t trouble them at first. Their cautious boy
seemed unlikely to be consumed by the excesses of
celebrity. They certainly didn’t foresee his relentless
touring schedule — after all, Tim had not long
conquered his fear of flying. But the life of a superstar
DJ is a rootless one and Tim began to hop from
nightclub to festival to arena, following late nights
with early mornings and cramming in what sleep
he could in cars and private jets. By 2016 he had
played more than 800 shows.
“The way I went into DJing was I’m going to give it
100 per cent no matter what happens,” he explained
in a 2017 documentary, Avicii: True Stories, which
tracked his punishing life on the road. When he
began to struggle, he blamed himself. “I also looked
around and saw everyone else doing what I was
doing, and they seemed fine.” He coasted on the
adrenaline at first, but his social anxiety soon began
to overwhelm him. “He was a shy person. He wasn’t
the one that went into a room with lots of people
and started talking or holding speeches,” Klas says.
Initially “it was fine, but then it became a problem”.
To soothe his nerves he turned to alcohol. “In the
beginning I was too afraid to drink, because I didn’t
want to screw up,” he said in the documentary. “But
then I realised how stiff I was when I wasn’t drinking.
So then I found the magical cure of just having a
couple of drinks before going on.”
Drinking soon became a dependence — one his
celebrity lifestyle made difficult to kick. “You’re
travelling around, you live in a suitcase, you get to
this place, there’s free alcohol everywhere,” he told
GQ in 2013. “It’s sort of weird if you don’t drink.”
Clear signs of danger came in January 2012. Tim
was in the midst of a 26-day, 25-venue tour of the US
when he began to complain of stomach pains. At first
he expected he’d make it through that night’s show
in New York on painkillers. But the pain became
agony, and he was hospitalised: pancreatitis, thedoctors explained, most likely triggered by his
drinking. He was prescribed opioids for the pain.
“At that time I started worrying,” Klas says.
The following year, as Tim arrived on tour in
Australia, his pancreatitis returned. Doctors
advised him to have his gallbladder removed, but
Tim declined. Again he was prescribed opioids,
among them OxyContin and Vicodin. The pattern
repeated a year later: this time his appendix
ruptured and he had surgery to remove it as well
as his gallbladder. Before long he was hooked on
opioids. Klas watched his son’s personality change
on the medication. “He was easily upset, easily
irritated. It was hard to talk with him,” he says.
In 2015 Tim’s family and friends staged an
intervention. Tim was renting a house in Ibiza, playing
every Sunday night at the outdoor club Ushuaïa.
He was consuming a staggering cocktail of drugs:
painkillers, sedatives, anti-anxiety medication,
antidepressants. His behaviour had become erratic:
he went off at strange tangents in interviews,Clockwise from left: Tim
with Emily Goldberg, who
was his girlfriend for two
years; Tereza Kacerova
kept her relationship with
Tim secret until after his
death; Madonna pays
tribute — and shares
a picture from 2012He asked the lighting technicians to
veil his face in shadow. “For him it
was clear: I can no longer do this”
PREVIOUS PAGES: EYEVINE. THESE PAGES: CHRISTOPHER HUNT FOR THE SUNDAY TIMES MAGAZINE, COURTESY OF THE BERGLING FAMILY, EMILY GO
LDBERG / INSTAGRAM, COURTESY OF TEREZA KACEROVA, @MADONNA/TWITTER
The Sunday Times Magazine • 35