Nikita Klæstrup

Early life and education

Klæstrup was born in 1994, the daughter of a Social Democratic father and a mother who was a former member of the Red-Green Alliance. She comes from the Guldborgsund Municipality. Klæstrup is a student from Vordingborg Gymnasium and HF, and is now a rhetoric student at the University of Copenhagen.

Political career

Klæstrup was a member of the Young Conservatives (Konservativ Ungdom, or KU) until 2015. During her time in that party, she was local association president in Lolland-Falster KU from 2012-2014. She ran for the Conservative People's Party in the Danish local elections in 2013 for the council in Guldborgsund Municipality. She received 128 personal votes, but was not elected.

Klæstrup changed to the Liberal Alliance after the general election in 2015.

Model and media attention

Klæstrup has worked as a fashion model for several years, including topless pictures. The combination of her political work and her physical appearance has secured her a lot of media publicity. The first time she received attention was during the Municipal elections in 2013, when she won a competition for This year's election babe held by the tabloid newspaper Ekstra Bladet.

At the University of Copenhagen's 110-year anniversary gala in 2015, she attended in a deep-cut reverse halter dress which caused a stir in both Danish and foreign media. She was covered by the local press including Berlingske and Jyllands-Posten. Later that year she appeared in a photo shoot for men's magazine M! which also showed her scantily dressed on the front cover. Her media performances made her the most Googled Danish politician and the most Googled Danish woman in a survey by Google Denmark in 2015.

Following the media attention, she appeared as a guest participant on TV3's reality series Paradise Hotel in 2016.

Political commentator

Klæstrup penned a letter to the editor after Copenhagen Pride (the Copenhagen Municipality's annual gay pride parade) dissenting the event as promoting discrimination of homosexuality. She wrote that the parade contributed to the stigmatization of homosexuals who do not want to be associated with this "circus parade".

In addition, she has criticised Freetown Christiania several times, including a speech in 2014 in Berlingske, where she called it a "harmful parallel society" and "a disgrace to Copenhagen", which was "an affront to law-abiding Danes." She believed that the Freetown should be normalized and converted into an ordinary residential area. Her comments led to violent reactions, including several personal threats. An 18-year-old woman was subsequently sentenced to a suspended jail sentence for making death threats against Klæstrup.