WHe doesn’t know the maxim “The star is the team” that is recurrent among football romantics? Ingredients of this phantasmagoria can also be found after 17 years of wearing out young models at Germany’s most well-known rehabilitation camp for long-legged catwalk hopes. Lena Gercke, the winner of the first season in 2006, is now a model, entrepreneur, presenter and, more recently, a singer – and is firmly established in the entertainment industry. This Thursday, on the other hand, the quotas are correct (the makeover episode recently had more viewers than it has been in 14 years), but the half-life of Gercke’s successors has reduced significantly at the same time.
In the meantime, even the most loyal fans of the model show can only vaguely remember last year’s winner at the beginning of a new season. GNTM is now like DJ Ötzi: Everyone knows “A star that bears your name”, but the felt 5000 songs that followed have shaped music history less than my performances in Berlin karaoke bars, which I rightly call the nail in the coffin of the art of singing.
„Give me eyes“
The Lieselotte Festival starts this week with a merciless self-analysis by the 66-year-old catwalk senior. Most recently, she had set the elimination walk in the desert sands of Nevada because she could understand less of the instructions given by the guest judges in English than Lukas Podolski of quantum mechanics. Unfortunately, the remaining Attitude squadron is still based in Los Angeles. So Lieselotte continues to encounter insurmountable language barriers. This week in the form of Pabllo Vittar, probably the most well-known drag queen in the world with 12.5 million followers, who will accompany the candidates to prepare for the first shoot. Pabllo Vittar opens the round of performance advice with the request “Give me eyes”. From Lieselotte’s facial expression you can see that she is thinking something like: “Where can I get an ice cream from so quickly?”
Wants ice, uh, eyes: Brazilian drag queen Pabllo Vittar (left) supports Heidi Klum in this episode.
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Image: ProSieben/Richard Huebner
At the latest when she finds out that the models will be hanging on ropes from a huge mobile, the prescribed pre-euphoria begins to falter: “That’s Jochen Schweizer-like today.” In other words: She’d rather have a voucher that then never redeems them. After all, another candidate from Heidi Klum’s inexhaustible list of favorite photographers is photographing: “Marc Baptiste has already photographed half of Hollywood.” So “Holly”. I’m keeping my fingers crossed that one day he’ll make “Wood” too.
Just hang out with friends
For the hangout with Marc Baptiste, the applicants wear special, let’s say dresses. The outfits for today’s shoot look as if the candidates had first fallen into a pot of honey and then into a used clothes container with discarded stuffed animals. Colorful unicorns, teddy bears and stuffed mice cling to the bodies of the novice models like insects smashed into pieces on the radiator grille after a five-hour drive on the Autobahn with dubious diligence in adhering to the speed limit.
Has found out again from the old clothes container: Candidate Sophie is styled for the shoot.
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Image: ProSieben/Richard Huebner
When the first girls are dangling over an unadorned parking lot in a suburb of the City of Angels, Heidi Klum is in top form for instruction. Vanessa is yelled into the right positions via megaphone: “Ride the star!” Spontaneous joy at the Hamburg tree wall: There hasn’t been so much attention for the “star” since the alleged Hitler diaries.
Professional enthusiast Sophie is also happy: “I’ve always wanted to fly.” At that moment, the TV audience and Sophie are on the same page for the first time since the beginning of the season. The majority of viewers share the wish that Sophie should finally fly. In her unicorn-covered dress, which the responsible stylist probably smuggled onto the show as an April Fool’s joke, Sophie feels like “Barbie Fairytopia”. And this isn’t a dyed-pink rapper selling videos of her exposed genitals to fans on OnlyFans.