Do we like Morten Harket?
Our score: 8 out of 10. A clean record and a long run of showing up for causes, but the public record on LGBTQ+ issues specifically is thin.
Morten Harket was born in Kongsberg, Norway, in 1959, to a doctor and an economics teacher. He sang in an Oslo blues band before landing in the trio that became a-ha, formed in suburban Oslo in 1982. Their first song, Take On Me, took a couple of goes to become a hit in 1985, and it was the first track by a Norwegian act to hit number one in the US.
Fame wasn't all champagne. He has called it “a blessing and curse”, and he's said the band sometimes envied the warmer welcome U2 got in the eighties. The band split briefly in 2010 and has been back since, and a 2021 documentary showed some tension inside the group.
On the harm test, the record is clean, though quiet. We found nothing on LGBTQ+ people, women or migrants either way, and no slide into conspiracy theories or culture-war grievance. We also found no sign of him working with anyone who does that. That's a gap in the coverage, not a tick.
What is on the record is his environmentalism. He told The Big Issue he was campaigning for electric cars 35 years ago, and said we need to respect all expressions of life on the planet. His own band's website describes his mid-nineties solo years as a period of fiery political involvement, from the climate crisis to East Timor.
He also turns up when it counts. In 2011 a-ha reunited for one more gig at the national memorial ceremony for the victims of the July 22 attacks. In 2015 he spoke at a government meeting launching an anti-bullying campaign, saying he was beaten up as a child, sometimes daily.
Nothing new on him lately that we could verify from reliable outlets, and we found no court cases or credible allegations. Some 2026 stories floating about are hoax-site content, so ignore them. In 2012 King Harald gave all three members of a-ha the Order of St Olav for their contribution to Norwegian music.