Michael Fassbender finally 'understood' ABBA after scary brush with death

Michael Fassbender developed a new appreciation for ABBA following a near-death experience during a late night boat trip to Ibiza.

The 'Agency' actor admitted he had "never really liked" the Swedish pop group but during a late-night boat trip to Ibiza, his vessel got caught up in a storm and while "hanging onto" the vessel, he joked the lyrics to 'Dancing Queen' finally made sense to him.

Speaking on 'The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon', Michael, 47, said: “I never really liked ABBA. And then we were in Ibiza — we were actually in Formentera, and we were getting a boat from Formentera to Ibiza — and we had a late lunch, and we were heading back at night, and it got really stormy. Like, bad.

“We’d already taken our little tender boat out to the main boat where we were going to go back to Ibiza, and that started deflating as we were heading out to the boat. So we just made it back, but that thing sort of sunk and we were laughing about it.

“We set off on the boat and the storm just kicked up and plates and everything were flying. We had to lock stuff down, but we had ABBA blasting. I was sort of hanging onto the boat and ABBA was playing and I finally understood ABBA."

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Pretending to hold on and ride the waves, he quipped: “It was like, ‘You can dance / You can jive / Having the time of your life.' "

Host Jimmy laughed and told the 'Black Bag' star that he is "always safe with ABBA".

Michael replied: “I was like, ‘If we have to die tonight, this is a good soundtrack to die to.’ Absolutely.”

While Michael - who has two sons with wife Alicia Vikander - isn't an ABBA fan, he previously shared his favourite artists' songs to sing at Karaoke.

He told Grazia magazine: "We karaoke. It's usually something in falsetto.

"I guess my Frank Sinatra is not bad because I'm kind of a baritone. But if I'm ambitious, I'll try Marvin Gaye or Rihanna.

"Rihanna went really badly - she was there."