TV legend provokes

Gottschalk: “Touching women purely for business”

Gottschalk lashes out again.

(Bild: APA Pool/Jens Kalaene)

The entertainer Thomas Gottschalk has declared in an interview that he would no longer touch women on his knee on television. And the TV legend was also provocative in other ways in the surprisingly open interview ...

He wouldn't do that today because he knows "that certain things are now politically incorrect that weren't back then", the 74-year-old told Der Spiegel. At the same time, he defended his behavior at the time.

It was not an expression of sexual interest: "I touched women on TV purely for business - like an actor who kisses in a movie because it's in the script," Gottschalk told the magazine when asked.

He would not be accused of this as an attack. Nowadays, he no longer enters an elevator where there is only one woman. "What do I do if she runs out on the second floor and shouts, MeToo, he touched me?" Unlike other men, he would have kept himself under control.

Is Gottschalk from yesterday?
Gottschalk refused to accept that he was trivializing the MeToo movement with his statements. He was much more afraid of being misunderstood these days - and would disguise himself in public.

"I used to get away with one: You know me, you know what I mean. Today, I would rather cough than say that I buy my cough syrup at the Mohren pharmacy," explained Gottschalk. The aging entertainer never wanted to improve the world: "I never went on the barricades or to peace demonstrations. I didn't believe that something would change just because I professed it."

Gottschalk struggles with loss of importance
The 74-year-old believes that he is now a "divider" is "nonsense". The fact that the "target group that has grown up" - young people - no longer want to know anything about him is simply his fate. "There are enough people who want to be photographed with me and pat me on the back. I don't have to google who thinks I'm shit." He is not at odds with the zeitgeist, he just doesn't understand it and is looking for explanations.

However, his loss of importance within the media industry is certainly taking its toll on him. "My self-esteem crumbles a little when people who sit on the money pots at broadcasters tell me that I used to be worth more." Nowadays, he hears "friendly excuses" from station bosses as to why he couldn't be cast.

Nobody is happy when they feel that things are slipping away from them. "That's something you realize as you get older: You get done. But you can't complain about that."