Michael Wendler and his wife Laura Photo: picture alliance / dpa / Stefan Gregorowius | Stefan Gregorowius
From BZ/dpa
Just one day after the format was announced, RTLzwei stopped its plans for a new docu-soap with the controversial pop singer Michael Wendler.
“The planned docu-soap with Michael Wendler and Laura Müller will not be produced and broadcast for RTLzwei,” said the broadcaster on Wednesday.
The reason given was that the “vehemence of the reactions had been noticed” and that the voices of the audience were taken seriously. “We apologize if we have hurt feelings here,” said the private broadcaster. BILD had previously reported.
RTLzwei only announced on Tuesday that it wanted to broadcast a new program with Wendler and his wife about their pregnancy. That was met with widespread criticism.
Michael Wendler has been an extremely controversial figure since 2020. 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, who had hired him as a juror for the casting show “Deutschland sucht den Superstar”, then called him a conspiracy theorist and immediately distanced himself from him.
Since then, Wendler had played no role in major television productions.