King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden has shared the secret behind his 47-year happy marriage to Queen Silvia.

The monarch, 76, made the admission in an upcoming documentary, titled The King, which will be released next month to mark his golden jubilee this year.

When asked by the film’s director Karin af Klintberg about his marriage advice, the king simply told her that “separate bathrooms” is the “very practical” answer to a successful marriage, according to Swedish newspaper Today’s news.

King Carl and Queen Silvia were married on 19 June 1976 in Stockholm Cathedral after meeting at the 1972 Munich Olympics. But their relationship has not been without its tribulations – following rumors of his “wild sex parties with strippers and long-term affair with a singer “.

Klintberg described the monarch’s response as “a pretty good relationship tip” but noted: “I also thought I was asking another, maybe more psychological question, but the king seems very practical about things and language.”

For years, King Carl’s only acknowledgment of a racier world was the fast cars he liked to drive – while his 47-year marriage to Queen Silvia was credited as a wonderful example of partnership.

Still, the Swedish monarchy was rocked in 2010 by the release of a new biography of the king that claimed to illuminate his “wild sex parties with strippers and long affairs with a singer”.

Titled The Reluctant Monarch, it accused King Carl – who is a third cousin of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II – of going to underground strip clubs with his friends and having an extramarital affair.

King Carl and Queen Silvia were married on 19 June 1976 in Stockholm Cathedral after meeting at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games

In 2010, the Swedish monarchy was rocked by the release of a new biography of the king that claimed to illuminate his “wild sex parties with strippers and long affairs with a singer”. No less than 14 pages described an alleged long affair he had with Camilla Henemark (pictured), the Swedish singer and model

After the biography was released, King Carl issued a “vague” statement, saying he and his family had chosen to “turn the page… and move on because, as I understand it, these are things that happened a long time ago.”

The controversial book revealed that the king and his friends had been accompanied by “coffee girls” – women who would “entertain” the group, made up of members of the remnants of the Swedish aristocracy.

Titled The Reluctant Monarch, this book accused King Carl – who is a third cousin of Britain’s Queen Elizabeth – of visiting underground strip clubs with his friends and having an extramarital affair

It also claimed the king frequented underground strip clubs. In the biography, the three investigative authors claimed that the king had “wild sex parties involving strippers”, sometimes organized by a notorious mafia boss in a Stockholm club.

It was also alleged that for many years he had been protected by the Swedish intelligence service Sapo, which displayed embarrassing material in his wake and pressured women to hand over compromising photos.

According to the late mafia-linked club owner Mille Markovic, who was quoted in the book, he liked having the king as a customer because it minimized the possibility of police raids.

After the publication of the book, Markovic claimed to have incriminating photographs of the king with naked women, taken at one of his sex clubs in the 1980s.

In 2021, the author of the controversial biography, Thomas Sjöberg, appeared in a new podcast, Motive, to explore the “royal scandal” together with the creator of the documentary series, Nils Bergman.

In the descriptions of the six-part podcast, available via the subscription service Acast+, it is said that for a few years in the early 90s the king and his friends, the so-called ‘royal gang’, had a standing reservation on Mondays at the underground club owned by Markovic.

In 2010, The Reluctant Monarch also accused King Carl (pictured with his wife in 2020) of having an extramarital affair with a famous Swedish singer in the 90s

“Young women and strippers have been almost systematically called into these party nights to please this elite group of powerful men,” read the summary of episode two, translated from Swedish to English.

“The men have promised the world, modeling jobs and careers in the entertainment industry, in exchange for getting what they want.”

Several women interviewed for the book claimed they had sex with the king. After a large dinner to celebrate a successful moose hunt, he is said to have had sex with two women at the same time.

At the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, where the King of Sweden was inevitably a VIP guest, he reportedly spent $10,000 (£7,000) at the Gold Club nightclub, including two hours in a room alone with one of the strippers.

In some cases, Sapo agents are said to have been used to search women’s homes to confiscate photographs taken at the king’s private parties.

“If the film rolls and pictures are not turned upside down, some unpleasant things will happen,” the book startlingly claimed.

In 2010, The Reluctant Monarch also accused King Carl of having an extramarital affair with a famous Swedish singer in the 90s.

No less than 14 pages describe an alleged long affair he had with Camilla Henemark, the Swedish singer and model.

Her response to the revelations after the book launch was not to deny them but only to say that her lawyer had advised her “to make no comment”.

The book claimed that Queen Silvia was aware of this affair but was helpless because the king had fallen in love as a teenager and at one point the king and Henemark talked about going to a remote island, like Marlon Brando’s Tetiaroa in French Polynesia, where they planned to live on coconuts”.

“It’s terrible that everything has come out,” a courtier said at the time. “But the Queen is a trooper. She will show nothing.