Barbara: Sonya, I was really kneaded on vacation in Austria. When the masseur was walking around on my thighs, he asked me if he should say anything.
Sonya: And, should he?
Barbara: Naturally. I was prepared for compliments. But then he said only one word: "dough".
Sonya: I beg your pardon?
Barbara: Well, "batter". He said: "You should eat less dough." He asked me if I would eat bread, pasta and potatoes. And tropical fruits, you would see that on my hips.
Sonya: Batter … It's very funny.
Barbara: But not your problem.
Sonya: How do you know? You haven't seen my dough yet.
Barbara: Then get it out, your dough!
Sonya: No. Then it would come out, which is wrong with me.
Barbara: Namely?
Sonya: I had unbelievable stretch marks when I was 14, because I grew 20 centimeters in one year, at the same time my hips and breasts exploded. The skin couldn't keep up.
Barbara: Where are they, the stripes?
Sonya: From the middle of the thigh to the upper hip bone. So I've been used to having a ripped butt for over 30 years. But who cares, I don't see it.
Barbara: Sometimes I put the cell phone with the camera on the sideboard and take a closer look …
Sonya: Really? Not me. It happened to me a few years ago by mistake. Something fell down in a hotel bathroom and when I picked it up, I saw through my legs in the mirrored door what my back looked like at the moment.
Barbara: And?
Sonya: Let's put it this way: I started ballet again afterwards and hired a personal trainer. And it was clear to me that string thong is gone forever. But I don't think the difficult relationship to my back is exclusive. Apart from Kim Kardashian, no woman really likes her bottom.
Rescuer in need: compression stockings
Barbara: And unfortunately there are no underpants that could help somehow.
Sonya: Maybe not, but … Okay: bag of tricks. I always wear compression stockings, these really blatant from the medical supply store. The Brazilian samba dancers do that too.
Barbara: The good medical compression stockings.
Sonya: Exactly. And then the second step: a pair of tights in a nice color. And then, as a third layer, dancer's fishnet stockings. The hammer, they jerk everything right. Nobody will say a bad word about your bottom.
Barbara: Great. Do you think Beyoncé also wears compression stockings?
Sonya: Well. That would not really surprise me. And if so, then in the evening her legs also have prints like a Hungarian salami on the net.
Barbara: But that's exactly the point: What if I don't have this press-pressure stuff on?
Sonya: Well, then you are alone and hopefully in peace with yourself. Barbara: And you know what: that's me. If I look in the mirror and I don't like what I see, I don't quarrel with myself. I say: what a stupid mirror.
Sonya: Great attitude. Does this also work in other areas?
Barbara: Clear. If a viewer did not like my programs on TV, I was firmly convinced for years that it was the viewer's fault. And I always keep an eye on what was and is good. Do you know that?
Sonya: Different, but not entirely: there is always a bigger problem than my butt that concerns me right now. That is why I can only take these outward appearances seriously.
It's a good thing I'm such a balanced and happy person …
Barbara: I know what you mean. And yet: there are fully mirrored hotel rooms, and when I walk through them naked, I think: it's good that I'm such a balanced and happy person, otherwise I would immediately withdraw from the public eye. I can understand anyone who is desperate about his body.
Sonya: Not me. Honestly: I'm just a professional. Nothing that I do for my looks, including my stockings, has anything to do with my private life. I don't even put on my make-up.
Barbara: Neither do I! But I noticed that anyway: we have a lot in common. We are almost the same age and both modeled …
Sonya: … started watching TV at the same time …
Barbara: … have used our big mouth profitably and do not take us both very seriously …
Sonya: … and not to forget: At about the same time we started building something much more important than just the job.
Barbara: That's right! When I was pregnant for the first time, we met at the Bremen six-day race.
Sonya: What did we actually do there?
Barbara: Well, we didn't ride a bike anyway. But I still remember that you asked me all the time about being pregnant – and you didn't know that you were already pregnant.
Sonya: Right. But what makes us different: You got a girl. Not me.
Barbara: Is that a flaw for you?
Sonya: Oooooch, I would have loved to have one. Maybe it's because I have such a close relationship with my mother, I would have liked that too. I love all my boys, but that's just a male household, it's always about higher, faster, further, sometimes I'm missing a different color. To compensate, we now have a dog girl, after all. She understands me.
Barbara: Do you actually notice physical quirks in others?
Sonya: What for example?
Barbara: Big bellies, sagging breasts, circular hair loss …
Sonya: Nah. And that is also related to the modeling that you mentioned earlier.
Barbara: As the?
Sonya: In this job you are surrounded by beautiful people from morning to night. This means that there are no longer any external distinctive features that can be used as a guide, physical perfection is nothing special. You have to stick to other parameters to recognize people. This immunizes you against using outwardness as a criterion for judgment. So: No, I don't see physical blemishes in others because I don't care.
Barbara: I understand well. I have never been with a man because he would have been particularly beautiful. I was looking for special features, abysses and, yes, maybe even flaws. When someone has teeth that are slightly overlapping … Sexy!
Sonya: I find self-irony hot in men, especially when it comes to your own masculinity. And if a woman can accept at eye level. But if someone insists on a classic division of roles, I find that a flaw.
Barbara: Exactly! I could be with someone who lacks a leg rather than someone who folds the napkins exactly on edge at home or who sorts their pencils by length in the office.
Sonya: We are also approaching what I mean by a quirk. Something that takes place in the head, not on the body.
Barbara: Do you have something like that?
Sonya: Uh … yes. I am a notorious eater.
Barbara: Like right now?
Sonya: Well, in the restaurant for example. I can't stand if anything of the food is left behind. Not only with me – also with others. Then, like the sushi circle, I stack everyone's plates around the table and eat everything, no matter what is on it.
Barbara: You are a vegetarian.
Sonya: No matter. The leftovers must also be removed.
Everyone has quirks
Barbara: Okay … anything else?
Sonya: Yes, I have a water saver. When I have a visitor who pees …
Barbara: … do you first hear how long the flush runs and whether he really pressed the economy button.
Sonya: Exactly. And if not, there is a serious conversation. Do you have something like that?
Barbara: Clear. I have a garbage separation taste. It goes so far that I take packaging apart and deconstruct it into its valuable materials. Remove transparent window from pasta packs and such.
Sonya: Go then. If it was.
Barbara: Wasn't it? The nicest thing for me is getting things done. I clean up like crazy and throw everything stupid around very quickly.
The bailiff came to me once.
Sonya: Didn't you just say you could never be with an order fanatic …
Barbara: It is something completely different.
Sonya: I tend to pick up too much rather than too little. I would also be afraid to throw away something that could still be used.
Barbara: Rightly so. The bailiff came to me once.
Sonya: Yikes! How come?
Barbara: I had dispensed fines and warnings for incorrect parking with the waste paper. Someone had to come and collect the coal personally … Oh, and one more thing: I hate flowers with greenery around them.
Sonya: What green stuff?
Barbara: Grasses and ferns. I would like to blow a bouquet like that to the giver. You're more relaxed there, aren't you?
Sonya: Yes totally. I am a big fan of live and let live.
Barbara: I find that all the more remarkable because you have already experienced terrible things.
Sonya: You mean my brother.
Barbara: Who died of sudden child death when you were six. And the thing with your father.
Sonya: Who killed himself when I was eleven.
Barbara: This would break many people. But you make a totally resilient impression.
Sonya: That is not wrong either. I think that's a decision you can make: should it kill me? Or should it teach me something about life and make me stronger?
Barbara: And you chose answer B.
Sonya: That shouldn't sound impious now, but sometimes I think: It's great that this happened to me. As a child, I developed a strong will to survive. And this is how my father overturned all role stereotypes.
Barbara: As the?
Sonya: In the mid-1980s, the image of the man as a protector, a breadwinner, and rock in the surf was still considered. If your father kills himself while you are at the ballet, this picture is destroyed. That paved a way for me: I would never rely on a man, I would always be independent, always make my own money. Be human without subjugating me to a man.
Barbara: You never married, even though you've been with the same man for 23 years.
Sonya: That has to do with it. I am strong, I am fundamentally positive. But that results from a phase of deep sadness and thoughtfulness. Not with you, right?
Barbara: No, I haven't seen anything like it. But I also have this unconditional will for independence. It doesn't get any less the older I get.
Sonya: Do you mind getting older?
Barbara: Not a bit. You?
Sonya: Nah. I also find the question of age increasingly ridiculous. Already at 25 I was suggested that at 30 I would have no more to do on TV.
Barbara: Nonsense. People are getting older with us. The demographic development is on our side.
Sonya: True, our year of birth is not a blemish. I now work for the Hessischer Rundfunk. Then someone said recently: "Ms. Kraus, actually you are still too wild and crazy for us."
Barbara: But?
Sonya: "But at least you're our age now." I laughed a lot.
Sonya Kraus, Born in 1973 in Frankfurt am Main, modeled before and after she graduated from high school before switching to television as a mute letter-turner in 1998. From 2000 she was also allowed to talk a lot and quickly in "talk talk talk". Since then she has been moderating various formats on various channels, had a column in "Emma" and wrote five non-fiction books. Oh yes, she also acted. She consciously lives in her hometown with a friend, mother, two sons and a bitch.
Stephan Bartels recorded the conversation between the two and almost forgot that he sometimes gets mad at his stomach.
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