Sweden’s twentieth-anniversary season of Let’s Dance ended on Friday night with a Norwegian victory — and honestly, it was never really in doubt. Martinus Gunnarsen, one half of pop duo Marcus & Martinus, lifted the coveted glass slipper alongside his professional dance partner Paulina Rosenkvist after taking a perfect score from the jury and the most viewer votes of the night.
A final four, then a final two
Four couples went into Friday’s TV4 final: YouTuber and podcaster Lovisa “Laki” Karlsson, influencer and TV personality Lisa Borg, TikTok profile Ludwig Blomqvist, and Martinus himself. The evening opened with “revenge dances” — each pair reprising a routine from earlier in the season to show the jury how far they’d come. For Martinus and Paulina, that meant a quickstep to Jet’s “Are You Gonna Be My Girl”, straight from the season premiere.
The night took a dramatic turn in the middle of the broadcast, when Borg and Blomqvist were eliminated before they could perform the show numbers they’d spent the week rehearsing. It’s a format several contestants had already criticised going into the final, and the abrupt mid-show exit made for uncomfortable television. In the end, only Martinus and Karlsson were left standing — and when both pairs earned full marks for their show numbers, it came down to the viewers at home. Sweden chose Martinus.
A delighted Martinus thanked the audience on air: “I’ve won because of you at home.”
The partner who keeps winning
For Paulina Rosenkvist, this is becoming a habit. The professional dancer won last year’s season too, alongside Theo Haraldsson — better known to Eurovision fans as Theoz — making her back-to-back Let’s Dance champion. And this season’s victory came with a bruise: Rosenkvist broke a rib earlier in the week, revealing the injury on Instagram with a rallying cry that she still had days left before the final. She told Expressen she had no intention of missing it, and she didn’t.
Solo Martinus, Swedish champion
What makes this win especially notable is that Martinus did it alone — no Marcus. The 24-year-old twins have spent their entire career as a unit since winning Norway’s Melodi Grand Prix Junior in 2012, but Friday night proved Martinus can command a stage without his brother beside him.
It also continues one of the more remarkable runs any non-Swedish artist has ever had in Sweden. Marcus & Martinus finished as runners-up at Melodifestivalen 2023 with “Air”, behind Loreen; won Melodifestivalen 2024; and represented Sweden at Eurovision 2024 in Malmö with “Unforgettable”, placing ninth in the final. Before any of that, the brothers won The Masked Singer Sweden in 2022. Add a Let’s Dance glass slipper, and the twins now hold three Swedish television trophies between them.
What it means
Reality-TV victories don’t always translate into anything more than a trophy and a good press week. But Martinus’s win feels like something more durable: the latest proof that the twins’ fanbase in Sweden runs deep enough to carry them through a viewer-vote showdown against local stars. The Norwegian brothers have been adopted so thoroughly by Swedish audiences that they’ve now beaten those audiences’ own favourites at Sweden’s own dance contest.
The win also arrives at a useful moment. With the duo’s 2026 live activity behind them and a new Melodifestivalen season already generating rumours, a headline-making solo turn keeps Martinus in front of exactly the audience that matters most to Marcus & Martinus — Sweden. Don’t be surprised if the brothers’ next big move, whatever it is, lands squarely in a Swedish arena.
For now, though, the glass slipper is heading to Norway. Again.
