In the eighth episode of the current GNTM season, Heidi Klum had a special surprise in store: she presented her candidates with six new competitors, most of them so-called “Best Ager Models”. But while for two of the women the journey to “Germany’s Next Top Model” is over after just one episode, another has particularly great potential. The 49-year-old Nicole Reitbauer from Offenbach am Main was able to convince everyone. Hessin is no stranger to Heidi Klum, as she revealed on the sidelines of a photo shoot.
“What you don’t know: Many, many years ago I also won a modeling competition and then went to Paris, Milan and London before I finally emigrated to America,” Klum told her candidates. “In Milan I lived with three or four other models and she was one of them.”
In fact, like Heidi Klum, Nicole Reitbauer took part in the “Model 92” contest around 30 years ago, a competition that took place as part of the RTL show “Gottschalk Late Night”. Klum was crowned the winner in April 1992 and won a contract with the New York agency “Metropolitan Models” – the starting signal for her later career. Reitbauer was less successful in the TV competition, but initially worked as a model anyway.
She revealed to the magazine “Bunte” that she did not meet Klum on the sidelines of the competition because she was eliminated so early. The paths of the two women crossed again a little later. “When we were 19, we had the same agency in Milan and even lived in the same flat share model. Between our castings, which were sometimes up to ten a day, we spent a lot of time chatting,” said Reitbauer.
In the current GNTM episode, Klum and her former roommate remembered the time together. “Was I nice?” The 49-year-old wanted to know. Nicole Reitbauer replied: “You were nice. And I’m often asked: ‘Was she like that back then?’ Then I say: ‘Yes, she was very lively and funny even then’.” Both regretted that there would be no souvenir photos from that time because there were no mobile phones.
Unlike Klum, who moved to the USA and made her international breakthrough as a model there with a cover of “Sports Illustrated” magazine, Reitbauer returned to Germany. There she met her husband, had two children and only modeled sporadically. The 49-year-old was primarily a housewife, mother and worked in her husband’s office as a secretary.
In an interview with the magazine “Bunte”, she revealed that her 19-year-old daughter was not so enthusiastic about her participation in GNTM at first. “My daughter had concerns at first and was hesitant. She’s in the middle of high school. It has an impact when mom is suddenly seen on television.”
In the meantime, however, she has the approval of her entire family and sees “Germany’s Next Top Model” as a second chance for a career in front of the camera. “Now is the right time to find out what else I can do, what’s inside me, what can you get out of me. My children are grown. I have time again to get started in my job and I’m ambitious,” said Reitbauer Broadcaster ProSieben.
Sources: “Bunte”, ProSieben, Joyn
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