Norway’s second richest billionaire comes out as bisexual on chat show watched by 3m viewers

Supermarket tycoon Stein Erik Hagen made the announcement on Skavaln

A rainbow flag celebrating Pride (Getty)

A supermarket tycoon and one of the richest men in Norway has come out as bisexual on a major talk show, in a move promoting LGBT visibility.

At 59, Stein Erik Hagen has amassed a fortune estimated by Forbes to be in the region of $4.3 billion from the RIMI budget supermarket he and his father founded in 1977.

He appeared on the Skavaln show, one of Norway’s biggest chat shows, and told three million viewers he was gay and had come to understand his sexuality later in his life, according to The Local.

“I realised I was gay well into adulthood," he told his host. “When I was in my 20s we didn’t know what it was. We heard about it but did not associate ourselves with it.”

Hagen later told the VG newspaper that he identified as bisexual, not gay, and said his ex-wives and children had known about his sexuality for years.