Marcel Winatschek

She’s Already in That One

Sarah Knappik stopped being a person somewhere around her fifth reality TV appearance and became a principle of German television instead. She’s on everything—GNTM, I’m a Celebrity, Model WG, Promi Big Brother, Total Blackout, Berlin Tag & Nacht, even Sharknado 4—to the point where she’s less a celebrity than a permanent fixture, like a news anchor or a jingle you can’t shake. The Playboy interview in this issue gives you the standard philosophical material: volcanoes, Tenerife, something about living in the moment. It’s what you say when you’ve been on enough television that you’ve become indistinguishable from it. She’s not pretending to be anything anymore. She’s just there, reliable and interchangeable, a guarantee that whatever they’re filming, there will be someone familiar on the screen.