Dolph Lundgren and his wife, Emma Krokdal, were out together in Beverly Hills, California, on Friday night for Arnold Schwarzenegger’s All-Stars for Change charity event at Novikov Beverly Hills.
Lundgren, 68, wore a black suit with a white dress shirt and gray sneakers. Krokdal, 30, wore a black one-shoulder chiffon top, a black asymmetrical satin wrap miniskirt, beige sequinned peep toe heels and a burnt orange satin clutch. The couple posed together for photos at the Italian-Mediterranean restaurant.
The event raised money for After-School All-Stars, the nonprofit Schwarzenegger founded in 1992 that provides free after-school and summer programs for young people. Lundgren worked behind the bar mixing cocktails for guests. The night was sponsored by his own vodka label, Hard Cut Vodka, which he and Krokdal co-founded in 2019 and formally launched in March 2025.
On Saturday, Lundgren posted a photo from the fundraiser on Instagram, writing: “A big thank you to Novikov Beverly Hills and Hard Cut Vodka for a fantastic event supporting my good friend Arnold Schwarzenegger’s charity, After-School All-Stars.”
A four-decade friendship
Lundgren and Schwarzenegger have been friends and workout partners for more than 40 years. Sylvester Stallone cast Lundgren as Soviet boxer Ivan Drago in 1985’s “Rocky IV” and personally trained him for the role, later becoming his mentor and friend. The two later starred together in “The Expendables,” “The Expendables 2” and “The Expendables 3.”
Speaking with Fox News Digital in December 2025, Lundgren said of working with Stallone: “He was my boss. I did what he told me to, hit him when he told me to. And I think in the beginning, it was more professional and slowly developed to friendship where you know, we kind of appreciate each other’s struggles.”
Lundgren defends the age gap
Lundgren and Krokdal met at a West Hollywood Equinox gym in 2019 and married at their villa in Mykonos, Greece, in July 2023. In his interview with Fox News Digital, Lundgren addressed the 39-year age difference between them directly.
“You always get haters and people say negative things about you if you’re in the public eye. 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.”
He added: “All that matters is that you enjoy your life, you enjoy your partner. And I think the choice of partner is one of the most important choices you can make in life. I’ve realized that. And I think Emma is the best choice for me, and I don’t care what people say.”
Krokdal, in her own interview with Fox News Digital, said the relationship works because “we come from a similar place with a very similar upbringing.” Lundgren is from Sweden and Krokdal is from Norway. She said the two connected on their backgrounds early on and described them both as “creative people” who help each other with their respective strengths and weaknesses.
A cancer fight behind him
Lundgren credited Krokdal with helping “save my life with the cancer journey and turn my life around.” He was first diagnosed with cancer in 2015 after doctors found a tumor in his kidney, which was removed surgically. New tumors appeared on his liver and kidneys in 2020, and he received a grim prognosis before seeking a second opinion. In November 2024, he announced he was cancer free.
“Going through cancer is a life-changing experience,” he said. “So I’m NED — it’s called No Evidence of Disease — for like three years now, actually. And you know, it’s a gradual process. You at first don’t believe it. You’re still kind of in that fight-or-flight mode.” Lundgren said he underwent “survivorship therapy” to establish a new baseline and now has a different way of looking at his life.
