“Particularly cruel”
Lawyer for the Lenhardt family clearly criticizes the Boateng documentary
12/11/2025 – 5:52 p.mReading time: 2 minutes
Court ruling, criticism from relatives, difficult topics: the TV documentary about Jérôme Boateng has led to some discussions. Now the other side is also speaking out.
A three-part TV series about Jérôme Boateng – that would have been celebrated in 2014 after Germany won the World Cup. But eleven years later, the ARD documentary “Being Jérôme Boateng” was not well received – instead there was a lot of discussion. In recent years, it has been the former national player’s private life that has made headlines.
It was about the accusation of violence against the mother of his children, but also about the relationship with his late ex-girlfriend Kasia Lenhardt and court proceedings. The “Süddeutsche Zeitung” called the work, which was more than two hours long, “a gift to Jérôme Boateng.” The “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung” writes “A lot of things are going well for him in the ARD documentary” and criticized the one-sidedness and superficiality.
The tragic story of Kasia Lenhardt’s suicide is only touched on in the documentary. Now the Lenhardt family’s lawyer, Markus Hennig, has spoken out in the “Tagesspiegel”. “I am in close contact with the family and am also speaking on their behalf here. She is horrified by the documentary – but doesn’t want to ennoble the whole thing by speaking out herself. The family has followed the advice from the start not to make themselves part of the reporting. What use would that be to her? It won’t bring her daughter back either,” says Hennig.
Kasia Lenhardt committed suicide in 2021 – shortly after Boateng’s “Bild” interview. In the film, Boateng called this interview a mistake: “What is clear and clear to me is that I misjudged the situation in retrospect and simply should have handled it better.” This mistake will stay with him for the rest of his life.
Boateng spoke to “Bild” shortly after the separation, among other things, about arguments in the relationship. In February 2021, Lenhardt’s family announced her death through an attorney. The police in Berlin confirmed an operation on a lifeless person for whom there were no signs of external influence.
Markus Hennig now also wants to speak to the public broadcasters, led by ARD. “We are working on it. We also criticize ARD’s previous reactions. The broadcaster is not seriously addressing the criticism. Only two days before the documentary was published, the new figures on violence against women were made public – and also presented by the ‘Tagesschau’,” explained Hennig. “What signal does that send? Violence against women is bad, but not when a celebrity commits it? ARD should withdraw the documentary.”
But that wasn’t all. Markus Hennig goes further in the interview – and it becomes clear: “I find the fact that the man whose interview in ‘Bild’ helped trigger the subsequent wave of hate in the first place to be allowed to shed crocodile tears – especially with regard to the family – not only as completely staged and tasteless, but as particularly cruel.”