Who Is Kristina Tholstrup? Roger Moore’s Wife, Marriages & Estate Battle

By the time Kristina Tholstrup met Roger Moore in the early 1990s, she had already outlived two husbands, built considerable independent wealth, and raised two children largely on her own. She was not looking for a famous face. She was living in the south of France, recovering from breast cancer.

The woman Moore would go on to call his soulmate in print is far more than a footnote in a James Bond actor’s biography. Born in Sweden in 1940, the socialite known to friends and family as “Kiki” has lived through events most people would struggle to believe: a High Court libel victory against the Daily Mail, a bitter guardianship dispute in a Monaco court, fifteen years of marriage to one of Britain’s most beloved actors, and the loss of both a daughter and a husband within ten months of each other.

She turned 85 in September 2025. She has never sought attention. Consequences have found her anyway.

Quick Profile

From Karlstad to Europe’s Elite Circles

Kristina was born Barbro Kristina Linder on September 6, 1940, in Karlstad, a mid-sized city in western Sweden. Her parents were of Danish origin. She grew up in Sweden before taking work as a flight attendant, a career that moved her through European cities and placed her consistently among wealthy, well-connected people.

It was through that work that she met her first husband.

First Marriage and a Sudden Widow at 34

In 1962, Kristina married Hans Christian Knudsen, a wealthy fur and leather manufacturer. They lived in a large family mansion with household staff. She had two children with him:

• Hans-Christian Knudsen Jr. — born July 9, 1966
• Christina Knudsen — born November 2, 1968

In January 1975, Knudsen took his own life. He had been accused of tax fraud and had suffered severe business losses. Kristina was left widowed at 34, with two young children aged seven and nine.

Ole Tholstrup, the Fortune, and Danish Royal Circles

Three years after Knudsen’s death, Kristina remarried. Her second husband was Ole Tholstrup, heir to a butane gas fortune and a well-placed figure in Danish aristocratic society. Ole was personally close to Prince Henrik, the consort of Queen Margrethe II of Denmark. The two men hunted together regularly, and the Tholstrups were regulars at Danish royal social events.

The marriage produced no children. Ole Tholstrup died on December 18, 1991, from cardiac arrest, a condition those who knew him linked to heavy alcohol use.

Kristina inherited his estate and permanently kept his surname. Combined with what she had received after Knudsen’s death, some estimates placed her personal wealth at around $65 million before Roger Moore entered the picture. She was independently wealthy before that relationship began, a detail that tends to get lost in the coverage.

How She and Roger Moore Grew Close

In the years following Ole’s death, Kristina was living in the south of France, where she had become a close friend and neighbour of Luisa Mattioli, Roger Moore’s third wife.

In 1993, Moore received a diagnosis of prostate cancer. Around the same time, Kristina was undergoing treatment for breast cancer, including a double mastectomy.

She sent Moore a message through a mutual friend, wishing him well.

Moore wrote about that period in his 2008 autobiography, My Word is My Bond. Chapter 14 is titled “The Health Scare” and the subtitle reads, in his own words, that in Kristina he had found his soulmate and that she had made him happier than words could express. He told Express magazine separately that the cancer diagnosis gave him time to reassess his life and that he was ashamed to admit he had been thinking of changing course entirely.

Moore separated from Mattioli in 1993 and moved to Monte Carlo with Kristina. Mattioli, who had considered Kristina a close friend, felt deeply betrayed. She refused to grant a divorce for years. The case was eventually settled in 2000 for £10 million, as reported by The Telegraph. She later wrote about the experience in her book Nothing Lasts Forever. Moore’s three children stopped speaking to him for a period after the split before they eventually reconciled.

Fifteen Years as Lady Moore

Kristina and Roger Moore married on March 10, 2002, in a deliberately private ceremony. Moore’s own agent told the press that no wedding had taken place. His son Geoffrey confirmed it had.

Their life together followed a consistent structure. According to the Evening Standard, they spent roughly six weeks a year in Monaco, six weeks in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, and the remaining months traveling for Moore’s work as a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, a role he had held since 1991. Moore credited Audrey Hepburn with drawing him into the organisation. Kristina traveled with him and became a steady presence at UNICEF events worldwide.

Moore wrote in his autobiography that their lives revolved around that work and that he considered it the most rewarding thing he had done. In 2003, he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for his humanitarian services. Kristina stood alongside him across years of public events, including:

• The wedding of Prince Albert II of Monaco and Princess Charlene (July 2011)
• A Dramatic Arts Reception hosted by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace (February 2014)
• The Christie’s 50 Years of James Bond auction
• Multiple Monte Carlo Television Festival ceremonies

Moore also noted in his autobiography that his wife, being Swedish, was already acquainted with Princess Lilian of Sweden through mutual friends, and that the couple would meet with the Princess whenever they visited Stockholm.

On the marriage itself, Moore told The Sun: “It’s a tranquil relationship, and there are no arguments.”

The Daily Mail Libel Case

On October 8, 2010, the Daily Mail‘s Ephraim Hardcastle column published an item referencing the gossip columnist Taki Theodoracopulos, who had described a Swedish woman named “Kiki” as a great love of his from 1958. The column placed Kristina’s photograph directly alongside the text, strongly implying she was the person being described. The piece suggested she had lived with Taki at the Hotel du Cap in 1958 and had accepted money from a 90-year-old Frenchman in exchange for a relationship.

Kristina engaged solicitors Harbottle and Lewis and filed a defamation claim at the High Court, seeking damages and an injunction against any repetition of the claims. Her legal team established that she was 18 years old in 1958 and had never been to France at the time.

Taki himself subsequently confirmed publicly that he had been referring to a completely different woman.

Press Gazette, the UK’s authoritative journalism trade publication, reported the outcome in October 2011. Associated Newspapers issued a formal apology in court and agreed to pay substantial damages and cover Kristina’s full legal costs. The publisher’s own solicitor, Harry Kinmonth, acknowledged in court that the allegations were untrue. The Sun reported the damages figure at £10 million.

Two Deaths in Under a Year

The final stretch of their marriage brought grief in rapid succession.

On July 25, 2016, Kristina’s daughter Christina Knudsen died of cancer at her home in Chichester, England. She was 47. Roger and Kristina were both with her at the end. Roger, who had given Christina the personal nickname “Flossie,” announced her death on Twitter and wrote that the family was heartbroken and that they had all been with her, surrounding her with love.

On May 23, 2017, Sir Roger Moore died in Crans-Montana, Switzerland, following a short battle with cancer. He was 89 years old.

His children, Deborah, Geoffrey, and Christian, released a formal statement that acknowledged Kristina directly: “Our thoughts must now turn to supporting Kristina at this difficult time.” Per Roger’s own wishes, a private funeral was held at Saint Paul’s Church, Monte Carlo. Dame Joan Collins was among the mourners. Sir Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan issued public tributes.

The Estate Battle After Roger Moore’s Death

Roger Moore’s estate was estimated at approximately £80 million at the time of his death.

Shortly after he died, Kristina was introduced to Norwegian lawyer Per Troen by mutual Danish friends, Carsten and Kate Hesselhoej, who had been close to her late daughter Christina. Between November 2017 and December 2018, a Monaco court was presented with details of three financial transactions that prompted concern:

• £2.2 million transferred to a New Zealand trust
• £479,000 gifted to the Hesselhoej family
• £155,000 in legal fees paid to Per Troen

Kristina’s son, Hans-Christian Knudsen Jr., then 53, obtained court injunctions in Monaco, arguing his mother had been taken advantage of in a vulnerable state following bereavement. In 2019, a Monaco court placed Kristina under financial guardianship, a legal status applied when a court determines a person can no longer manage their own financial affairs.

Kristina disputed the ruling publicly. She told the Daily Mail she had absolute trust in Troen and felt, for the first time in her life, genuinely in control of her own affairs. She was direct about what she believed had caused the dispute: it had started, she said, after she stopped paying her son his allowance.

Per Troen denied all allegations in writing. As of September 2020, when the NZ Herald last reported in depth on the matter, probate on Moore’s estate had still not been formally declared.

Where Is Kristina Tholstrup Today?

Now 85 years old, Lady Kristina Moore maintains no public social media presence and makes rare public appearances. She continues to divide her time between Monaco and Switzerland, the same homes she shared with Roger Moore for fifteen years.

The estate dispute and guardianship case remain the last events in her life to receive detailed press coverage.

Three husbands, all of whom died before her. A daughter who did not survive to 50. Breast cancer in her early fifties that she recovered from. A drunk driver in 1999 who was never prosecuted, and a car she has not sat behind the wheel of since. A High Court libel victory. A Monaco courtroom at the age of 78.

The public record of Kristina Tholstrup exists almost entirely in other people’s accounts, including in a chapter of a James Bond actor’s autobiography titled simply “The Health Scare.” In that chapter, Roger Moore described the woman beside him as the person who had brought him the happiest years of his life.

She had already lived through several lifetimes by the time he wrote that.