Hape Kerkeling
Entertainer complains about a “homophobic atmosphere”
© ZDF
Hape Kerkeling no longer lives with his husband in Berlin but in Cologne. Why?: He had previously felt a “homophobic atmosphere”.
The entertainer Hape Kerkeling (58) was concerned about certain social developments in Germany on Thursday evening on the ZDF talk show “maybrit illner”. “The atmosphere has become much more homophobic,” says Kerkeling, for example, when asked by the presenter why he and his husband moved from Berlin to Bonn some time ago. He “sometimes has the feeling that we live in a time similar to that of the Weimar Republic”.
At that time, too, there was progress: “It wasn’t a problem to be transgender. There was the first gender reassignment. All of that was completely unproblematic.” And then the National Socialists took power and tore down all developments. Now it would seem to him that we are on the eve of something he doesn’t really want to experience. So he left Berlin with a heavy heart, which he has not regretted to this day.
Hape Kerkeling doubts: would Horst Schlämmer still work today?
With regard to his own industry, Kerkeling speaks out against the demand sometimes put forward that social groups may only be embodied by members of the identical group in films or on stage. His argument: “What have I played in the last few decades? Heterosexual men.” Apparently he was able to embody them credibly. “So why shouldn’t a heterosexual also be allowed and able to play a gay man?” asks Kerkeling. He even goes so far as to say, “Why shouldn’t a man play a woman?”
Looking back on his own career, Kerkeling is also quite self-critical. For example, he doubts that his signature role of Horst Schlämmer, a drinking and unpleasant local journalist, would still work today. He didn’t have anything to take back, since “of course it was all a travesty” and he wanted to make fun of the “old white man” in this role, but: “I think people would laugh sometimes get stuck in their throats.” Some jokes were “disgusting,” he said after a clip of his appearance as Horst Schlämmer on “Wetten, dass ..?”
Hape Kerkeling almost completely withdrew from the public eye in 2014 at the age of just 50, effectively ending his extremely successful career. After eight years of abstinence and only sporadic appearances and engagements, the broadcaster RTL announced the big comeback in 2021. The cult TV film “Club Las Piranjas” from 1995 returns as a mini-series with Kerkeling in the leading role, and it also presents a travel documentary on VOX, for example.