"Pain like hell!"

Dieter Bohlen: Emergency operation due to blood poisoning

Dieter Bohlen had "complete blood poisoning"(Bild: Simon Pfaff / Action Press)

"Deutschland sucht den Superstar" judge Dieter Bohlen lives in constant fear of blood poisoning. Even the slightest scratch - as he did recently at a casting at Europapark Rust - sends him into a panic. The reason: he underwent emergency surgery due to sepsis. 

The German pop titan didn't really want to talk about it. But now he has opened up to Bild and told them that he almost lost a leg a few months ago and that he was in a really bad way.

"Knee got thicker and thicker"
He had suffered a knee injury while playing tennis. Despite treatment, the pain got worse and worse. "My meniscus was damaged," says the 70-year-old. "The doctors did an MRI and said I should have it done quickly and sent me to one of those fast-track clinics. It was done in no time at all, but my knee got thicker and thicker."

"Pain like hell"
He had his knee treated again and again. Without success. Instead, "Pain like hell!" For nine days. When his fiancée Carina took him back to the doctors, "they looked stupid" and said: "There's nothing more we can do, you have to go to the emergency room in hospital straight away. I was almost unconscious by then."

At the hospital, it was immediately decided that emergency surgery was necessary to save Bohlen's leg. "Because I had complete blood poisoning with a CRP level of over 200," explains the otherwise tough juror. 

Bohlen is considered one of the most successful pop producers in Germany. By his own account, he is "the only artist who can boast 25 number 1 hits and has been awarded over 100 gold records".