Recommendations of the Editorial team
Nine days before his final farewell from television (December 6th), Thomas Gottschalk looks back in a chat interview with his Munich-based Amigo magazine “Bunte” on a career that has shaped German entertainment television for decades.
Coquetry with poverty in old age
The 75-year-old speaks openly about age, transience and the question of how to leave the spotlight with dignity. The king of the big Saturday evening show appears quick-witted as usual, but also unusually vulnerable.
However, he is very flirtatious about the financial conditions of his retirement. He receives “almost a thousand” in state pension, after all, he used to be an editor at Bayerischer Rundfunk. What Gottschalk doesn’t mention is presumably fat income from privately invested sources of money and real estate ownership. Here the master of the colorful brocade jacket counts himself unnecessarily poor.
Blackouts and open hatches
On the other hand, he self-deprecatingly describes moments of failure, such as his much-discussed recent appearance at the Bambi Awards in 2025. He had “a blackout” there and “just babbled around”. However, for him, mistakes like this are part of a long professional life, and he says with disarming honesty: the biggest mistake of his life was “opening his mouth too often.”
Gottschalk also speaks openly about rumors that arose after such performances – including speculation about dementia. If he were actually affected, he would “definitely deal with it openly,” he emphasizes. He thinks a lot about getting older without drifting into the dark.
Life in God’s hands
He cannot understand why the Kessler twins decided to commit suicide together at the age of 89: “Anyone who is 89 is looking forward to their 90th birthday.” He sees his own life “in the hands of God” and he trusts that he can feel the right time when it is enough.
Farewell without bitterness
Gottschalk describes the decision to withdraw from television as a logical consequence of a changing media business: Today, no broadcaster would say “Thomas, we are doing something completely new with you”. He accepts that – without bitterness, but with a realistic view of an industry that continues to evolve.
His wife Karina also played a role in this decision. It was decided together, and she “finds Thomas from Kulmbach more exciting than Gottschalk from TV anyway.”
After their last broadcast on St. Nicholas Day, the couple’s first priority would be to travel. However, Gottschalk doesn’t want to completely fall silent: just because he stops doesn’t mean that he will “never make a sound again.”
There won’t be anything like that again
How he wants to be remembered, however, hardly concerns him. Perhaps posterity will classify him the way he classifies the Beatles: “There won’t be anything like that again.”
This will soon be the end of a powerful chapter in German television entertainment. Gottschalk’s farewell does not seem like a curtain falling, but rather like a calm fading out: he leaves with the calmness of a man who knows what he has created – and who is curious about what is waiting for him beyond the cameras.