Eklund had his first American experience as a foreign exchange student in Edina, Minnesota, where he attended Edina High School. After finishing high school, Eklund studied at the Stockholm School of Economics, but never graduated.[6] He has worked for the financial newspaper Finanstidningen. At the age of 23, Eklund founded an Internet company with over 45 employees, and went on to work for the investment bank SEB in Stockholm, London, Singapore, and Tokyo before beginning his work in New York City.[7]
Film career
In 2004, before arriving in New York City, Eklund acted in a number of pornographic films under the pseudonym Tag Eriksson (or Tag Ericsson).[8] In an interview with Out Magazine, Eklund has said of this period, "It was only a week of my life, accumulated. It was spread out over a few months, so it was a very short period of my life. It was something that I tried and quickly decided that I was done with." Eklund went on to say in the interview that he is proud of who he is, that he does not regret anything, and that his past involvement in the pornographic film industry has not negatively affected his career.[8]
Real estate career
Eklund has closed over five billion dollars in residential real estate.[9] Eklund became managing director at the New York City real estate firm CORE Group Marketing and in 2010, alongside his business partner John Gomes, managing director at Prudential Douglas Elliman, the largest real estate brokerage on the East Coast. Eklund also started the top-selling team at Elliman.[9]
Eklund is the founder of Eklund Stockholm New York,[10] Scandinavia's most high-end residential real estate brokerage with 50 employees and $1 billion in closed sales in 2014.[9] He is an active member of the Real Estate Board of New York.[7]
On January 24, 2022, Fredrik Eklund announced his departure from the Million Dollar Listing franchise.[13]
Personal life
On February 9, 2013, Eklund married artist Derek Kaplan, who is originally from Zimbabwe,[14] on Little Palm Island in the Florida Keys.[15] The couple lived in New York with their dogs Mouse and Fritzy until 2016.[16] The couple have previously lived in Roxbury, Connecticut, in a mansion Eklund purchased.[17] In 2020, the family relocated from New York to Los Angeles.[18] In the summer of 2023 they moved to Miami, Florida.[11]
Eklund and Kaplan attempted to have children through surrogacy, but the surrogate suffered a miscarriage.[19] In November 2017, Eklund and Kaplan had twins via surrogate: daughter Milla and son Fredrik Jr. They also have an older son, Kai, who is Kaplan's biological child.[20]
