2024-09-25 19:21:00
Hape Kerkeling has been openly gay for decades. It wasn’t always like this. The author now reveals how his sexual orientation initially caused problems.
33 years ago, one of the biggest “revelation scandals” on German television occurred. On the evening of December 10, 1991, Rosa von Praunheim appeared on the TV show “Explosiv – Der Heiße Sitz” and – in the absence and without the knowledge of Hape Kerkeling – made it public to an audience of millions that Kerkeling was gay. A taboo break. Kerkeling’s sexual orientation was a topic in the media for weeks.
Isabel Varell, then and now one of Hape Kerkeling’s closest friends, described it in an exclusive guest article on t-online in 2021 for the 30th anniversary: ”I will never forget the evening of Rosa von Praunheim’s TV appearance. I saw the show live back then and my heart stopped because I immediately thought, how is my friend Hape feeling about this now. That was disgusting.” Read the whole story here.
What many people did not know: At the beginning of Kerkeling’s career and before his forced outing, his employer at the time, WDR, wanted to market him differently to the public, portraying him as a heterosexual man. In the early to mid-1980s, the TV star made his breakthrough, among other things alongside Isabel Varell in the ARD show “Känguru” – and it was precisely she, as his sidekick in the show, who played a crucial role in WDR’s sham packaging idea.
“The WDR wanted to force me into a fake relationship with a woman,” Kerkeling told Bild in connection with a new book release. “A Rex-Gildo-Gitte thing like there was in the sixties.” What Kerkeling means by this is that the pop stars Rex Gildo and Gitte had fooled their fans into believing they were in a relationship in order to conceal Gildo’s sexual orientation.
Apparently, this idea also occurred to Hape Kerkeling. “The plans were already very advanced. They had chosen one of my best friends,” says the now 59-year-old about Isabel Varell. “We actually talked about it, but then decided against it. We didn’t want to block each other. And we just didn’t want to play these games.”
The entertainer has been married to Dirk Henning since 2017. As a homosexual couple, the two live together in Cologne. Looking back on the early days of his career and his plans for WDR, Kerkeling says: “The situation was anything but funny. This question can determine a person’s existence.”