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Heidi Klum pulls out all the stops in order to get the drum started in the best possible way for the sixteenth season of “Germany's Next Top Model”.
It patters us from all corners.
Kasia Lenhardt (2012 finalist of the seventh season) and Jérôme Boateng (2014 world champion) are fighting a dirty war of roses in the gossip press.
Klum himself has been touring all of Berlin's romantic photo hotspots with her husband Tom Kaulitz for weeks, and fortunately always has a photographer with him.
At the same time, daughter Leni is making her catwalk debut at Berlin Fashion Week.
The expectations of the new season for the top model search, for which over 17,000 applications have been received, are correspondingly high.
For a simple classification: That would have to be about three times as many people as the ZDFneo show “Shapira Shapira” had viewers.
Heidi Klum and her guest juror, designer Manfred Thierry Mugler
Source: ProSieben / Richard Hübner
GNTM traditionally has a few more viewers.
Last season around 2 million, which corresponds to a market share of 20 percent in the so-called advertising-relevant target group.
In order not to let this trend stop, ProSieben first sends highlight teasers for the upcoming episodes into the race before the opening credits can be seen for the first time.
Pictures of the makeover and of Otto Waalkes, for example.
The East Frisian model expert is obviously replacing Thomas Hayo in the guest juror chair.
The GNTM official language Denglish is fading and the candidates must show as much Ottitude as possible from now on.
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What exactly Otto's role will be remains initially unclear.
But it seems certain that the girls will have to prove themselves on some catwaalkes.
In addition, a new category will be established.
For the first time there is a "naked walk".
Traditionally, star photographer Rankin is not far when GNTM gets blank.
"Rankin" is ancient Greek and stands for "naked truffle pig".
All in all, Heidi Klum is certain: “This year is different, but different doesn't mean worse”.
Unless, of course, it's about her hairstyle.
After this philosophical intro, everything revolves around the fresh candidates.
One of them is Chanel.
She had a life-threatening illness as a child that left extreme scars on her legs.
But other participants also carry harrowing fates with them.
Romina, for example, reveals that she “used to be based on Instagram” and therefore “pecked at curves, made extensions and had her lips sprayed on”.
If she doesn't make it to the semi-finals with this sappy story, it's no longer my GNTM.
To make the name confusion perfect, there is another Romina in the squad.
We call her Romy so that there is no confusion.
Romy has never had his lips sprayed on, but she is surprised by last year's winner Jacky with the commitment to GNTM 2021.
Jacky's first real job, if you will, since the Philipp Plein debacle after the final last year.
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So today she goes to Görlitz and hands Romy the ticket to Heidi Klum.
Romy is surprised and touched.
She doesn't even notice the five cameras in the family allotment garden.
When the real Jacky suddenly stands in her gazebo, she breaks into tears, effective for the camera.
Romy is completely out of the (garden) shed.
Especially because she has never "met a real star".
Jacky does not tell her that she came alone and that no real star will join her anymore.
The first major model task: the candidates run in a fashion show in front of designer legend Manfred Thierry Mugler
Source: ProSieben / Richard Hübner
With Soulin, there is also a candidate from Syria.
A fascinating personality.
A young woman with a migration background who came to Germany from her bombed-out homeland only five years ago and has since learned our language perfectly and at the same time successfully graduated from high school.
I very much hope it will keep us competitive for a long time.
Well-groomed German and school leaving certificate - Soulin is thus much more integrated than most AfD trolls and Nazi failures.
The group is completed by a few girls with individual fates.
Maria, for example, is deaf, but fits seamlessly into the group.
Inclusion obviously works better even among budding top models than in an average German school.
The country girl, which is gladly taken on every season, is also there again.
This year it's called Lena.
Up until now, Lena only drove a tractor instead of a limousine and now wants to "make it onto the catwalks with rubber boots".
From her everyday life on the farm she is used to standing knee-deep in the shit.
Quite an advantage when you consider what a GNTM candidate you sometimes have to endure for social media comments.
The down-to-earth Main-Spessarterin is a rookie when it comes to beauty: “I never put on make-up at home, there are only cows”.
“Alone among cows” - actually a nice title for Thomas Hayo's book about his time at GNTM.
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Another thing that stands out: Romina's boyfriend looks a bit like Robbie Williams' brother, but is only Giovanni Zarella's brother.
That may be disappointing for Take That fans, but for Romina it is paradise.
She is "5 million percent certain that he is the man I want to marry".
Stefano Zarella - the 5 million percent man.
And anyone who says that doesn't sound like a lot at first, let me tell you: That's 5 million percent more than Amazon pays taxes in Germany.
There are no reliable figures on how much taxes candidate Dasha pays.
Nevertheless, she approaches GNTM with a tough, uncompromising approach: "I do everything, right down to the last point".
Fortunately it is not Mainz 05, because then it might be over by the weekend.
On the contrary, Dasha believes in himself: “I am gifted when it comes to talents!” That is definitely an advantage.
Heidi Klum's career began similarly.
She was always considered pretty when it came to beauty.
But that’s enough with introductory skirmishes, because Klum still has to send six girls home today.
For this decision, all girls have to prove themselves in dresses by designer Irene Luft.
Luft Design - by the way, not a fancy code name for "nude shooting".
This cold start comes suddenly for many model aspirants.
Alexandra in particular is surprised: "This is a throw in the cold water".
Hopefully it will still go well, otherwise it will end up being a grab in the toilet.
Shortly after this legend quote, at exactly 9:21 p.m., the girls finally get to know Heidi Klum.
Immediately everyone is enthusiastic.
Ex-extension queen Romina even feels right at home: "She exudes something calm, like a mother".
Congratulations, Romina.
After just under a minute you have already called Heidi Klum old and boring.
Your final ticket is thus canceled.
While Germany's next top pianist Igor Levit and Dunja Hayali (the Heidi Klum of serious journalism) are still talking about Brussels sprouts on the second screen on Twitter, the GNTM competence team is already feverishly looking for potential for conflict.
Where are they, the new quota drivers?
We need a new Ösi clique, a new Gucci gang or at least a new blasphemous Lijana.
Instead of drama, there are only three commercial breaks in the first hour.
The first advertises alcohol, the second sex toys and the third health insurance.
Coincidence?
Or the triad of a chain of unfortunate coincidences?
During the rehearsals for the first walk, Klum is finally in top form and advises: "Please try to keep your legs together".
Sounds understandable at first, but on the other hand: If you get pregnant at the start of filming in August, you could give birth to the first GNTM baby live on stage at the finale in May.
Childbirth on the catwalk, possibly with Ellen von Unwerth as a midwife and Thomas Gottschalk as a gynecologist.
Although the latter has avoided Heidi Klum since he had to marry Theresia Fischer (the one with the leg extension and the talking stuffed marmot Herbert) live with her boyfriend, who is almost 50 years older, in the 2019 GNTM final.
If he had avoided “The Last Instance” instead of Heidi, he would not have to steal programs from Joko Winterscheidt today as a misunderstood anti-racist.
But come on, never mind, paprika sauce over it.
Heidi Klum then invited star fashion designer Thierry Mugler, who is now called Manfred, as a guest judge for the big Final Walk.
Nobody really knows why.
Maybe he sold his naming rights, like Prince did back then.
TMFKAS (The Modelmama Formerly Known As Supermodel) welcomes Mugler, who has arrived in the gray and yellow jogger, as if Karl Lagerfeld himself had stepped down from haute couture heaven to bring international flair to Berlin.
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Although Lagerfeld would probably have reminded Mugler first that people in sweatpants have lost control of their lives.
As if he had heard Karl, Mugler later slips on a gold winter jacket in which he looks like a bloated Bruce Willis who wants to hire a bouncer in Berghain.
Mugler looks ominous overall and speaks mostly about bodies.
It quickly becomes clear: the tracksuit is Manfred Mugler's smallest problem.
But that doesn't matter for Klum, she first introduces a candidate: "It won't come Gucci, it won't Prada, it'll come Chanel".
That's funny, you might have guessed it, because the candidate is not Gucci, not Prada, but Chanel.
Cracker, right?
Fortunately, nobody is called Cheyenne.
I really would not have endured the sentence "Jimi Blue won't come, Wilson Gonzales won't come, Rocco won't come - Cheyenne will come", even if Ochsen-Knecht Ruprecht had threatened me personally that otherwise I would only be allowed to spend the rest of my life See "The Wild Things".
But then the final défilé starts.
The music comes from a DJ who rocks the turntables so enthusiastically as if he had just sung folk songs with Philipp Amthor and Bodo Ramelow at the clubhouse.
After the final walk, the decision is made, in which Klum lets the dreams of six girls burst.
Above all, Romy is afraid that it could catch her, but ultimately trusts in higher powers: "No matter how it turns out, it is willed by God".
Manfred Mugler agrees, although he does not necessarily ask to be called "God".
As a reward, he lets Romy go one round.
In the backstage area, meanwhile, the other candidates are trembling.
When Klum and Mugler have finally graded all of them, Franziska, Maria-Sophie, Vanessa, Alexandra, Samantha and Lena are hit.
For them, the GNTM adventure is already over before Klum can use her secret weapon for the first time: the perfect past perfect.
But she quickly reveals the secret of her international modeling career: "I always smile with my breasts".
I'm sure that's funny at the dentist.
It will only be funnier in the coming week, when the first squabbles and the first tears are due in the great fight for the golden contract with Günther Klum.
I will be there for you!
Source: Getty Images
Marie von den Benken is on Twitter and Instagram as @Regendelfin, she is from Hamburg, model and author. She also writes every week on ICONIST about the big and small dramas at "Germany's Next Topmodel".
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