Early and Personal Life
Simonsen was born in Stavanger to businesspersons Viktor Holck Simonsen (1913–1990) and Martha Espevoll (1917–1991). He was born and raised in the city district Våland, and later lived a few years in Eiganes. He studied social science at Rogaland University College and has a minor in history. He has been editor for the publications Strandbuen, Video- og TV-guiden and the official Progress Party publication Fremskritt. He is not married.
While he was christened in the Church of Norway, and as an adult remained a strong supporter of the church, he left it during the term of Gunnar Stålsett as bishop of Oslo. This was as Stålsett had been the chairman of the Centre Party in the 1970s, and got his bid for bishop supported by Centre Party MPs in 1998, with Simonsen thinking the choice to have been too politicized. When Stålsett stepped down in 2005, and was succeeded by Ole Christian Kvarme, Simonsen however rejoined the church.
In 2005 Simonsen was a competitor on the television show Robinson VIP, a Scandinavian adaptation and celebrity edition of Survivor, achieving the position as runner-up. His favourite record is Satisfaction by The Rolling Stones, and his favourite writer is Leon Uris.
Read more about this topic: Jan Simonsen
Famous quotes containing the words early, personal and/or life:
“We can slide it
Rapidly backwards and forwards: we call this
Easing the spring. And rapidly backwards and forwards
The early bees are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:
They call it easing the Spring.”
—Henry Reed (1914–1986)
“Wherever the State touches the personal life of the infant, the child, the youth, or the aged, helpless, defective in mind, body or moral nature, there the State enters “woman’s peculiar sphere,” her sphere of motherly succor and training, her sphere of sympathetic and self-sacrificing ministration to individual lives.”
—Anna Garlin Spencer (1851–1931)
“she bit the towel and called on God
and I saw her life stretch out . . .
I saw her torn in childbirth,
and I saw her, at that moment,
in her own death and I knew that she
knew.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)