In response to the cancellation of his new docu-soap by RTL Zwei, pop singer Michael Wendler has announced a statement. "Unfortunately, RTL2 has decided today after a firm commitment and contractual agreement, but not to implement the filming of our new show," wrote Wendler in the night to Thursday on Twitter. "Many question marks remain. I will comment on this as soon as possible."
On Tuesday, RTL Zwei had announced that it wanted to bring Wendler back to the screens. A docu-soap was planned about the 50-year-old singer and his 22-year-old wife Laura, who is pregnant – headline: "Michael Wendler's baby happiness". Viewers should get "intimate insights into the lives of Michael and his Laura". The birth itself was intended as the crowning "season highlight". The broadcast was planned for this year, it was initially said.
Criticism from our own ranks
But just one day after the announcement, RTL Zwei canceled the show. "The planned docu-soap with Michael Wendler and Laura Müller will not be produced and broadcast for RTL Zwei," said the private broadcaster based in Grünwald near Munich on Wednesday. In addition, the streaming service RTL+ stated that the Wendler program "neither before nor after the TV broadcast" will be available on the portal. RTL Group is RTL Zwei's main shareholder with 35.9 percent.
He explained that he had "perceived the vehemence of the reactions" and took the voices of his audience seriously. The broadcaster apologized.
The criticism reached into their own ranks. Carmen Geiss, known from the RTL Zwei-show "Die Geissens – Eine schrecklich glamouröse Familie" wrote on Instagram that it was a "shock news". "Conspiracy ideological statements are not our style," wrote the reality TV actress and threatened: "Even if it should have the consequence that the Geissens stop at RTL 2!"
The subsequent cancellation of the station welcomed the Geiss couple. With this decision, "courage was shown," the 57-year-old wrote on Instagram on Thursday. In addition, she and her husband Robert were "in contact with the station boss and colleagues". They are glad that "responsibility has been taken here".
Conspiracy theories via Telegram
Wendler, previously often booked protagonist for reality formats such as the jungle camp or "Celebrity Big Brother", has been considered a scandalous figure since 2020 at the latest. At that time, he caused a scandal with a video on corona policy in Germany because he accused the federal government of "gross and serious violations of the constitution". The broadcaster RTL, for which he worked as a juror in the casting show "Deutschland sucht den Superstar", then called him a conspiracy theorist and distanced itself.
After another statement by Wendler about Germany as a "concentration camp", he was then completely cut out of already filmed episodes of the casting format. Allegedly, "KZ" was an abbreviation for "crisis center" and not concentration camp, he later claimed. From then on, he was no longer booked for television formats.
On the messenger service Telegram, Wendler continued to share posts with false claims and extreme content such as the QAnon conspiracy theory. On the corona pandemic, which he described as a "fake pandemic", he shared a post by another user entitled "Vaccination – the final solution of the human question" – an allusion to the National Socialist extermination policy against Jews. He also shared slogans such as "Vaccination makes you free" on Telegram. Wendler himself repeatedly described the corona vaccination as a "poison injection".
Distancing from "extremism of any kind"
The criticism of his announced docu-soap tried to appease Wendler himself. On the Instagram channel of his wife Laura, a statement was published on Wednesday night. He was "vehemently surprised," it said. "First of all, I would like to make it clear that I am not and never was a racist or anti-Semite!" He also regretted "many" of his statements today. Which exactly, remained unclear. But Wendler asked for "a chance".
RTL Zwei, however, she obviously did not want to give him anymore. In the discontinuation of the docu-soap format, the station made it clear that it had always distanced itself from "extremism of all kinds" and stood for cosmopolitanism and tolerance. "It is important to us to avoid even the appearance that the broadcaster is willing to cut corners here," the statement said.