Muriel Baumeister is ascending the mountain peak
Life hasn't been easy on Muriel Baumeister recently. First, she acknowledged her alcohol addiction, and then she was diagnosed with breast cancer. She admits she's not the ideal patient fighting cancer, but she's feeling better now.
Muriel opened up about her breast cancer journey in April 2023, revealing that she had been battling the disease for a year. Two years later, she's not completely healed, but she's currently cancer-free and back in front of the camera.
She wants to move past her illness, as she told "Bunte" magazine in an interview. "I want to consider that entire sickness period as a closed chapter. I just don't want to keep thinking about it all the time," she said, aged 52.
However, she admits she hasn't been constant with her follow-up care. "I know I'm not the ideal patient. When I skipped follow-ups for four or five months, my professor gave me a tough talk and made me feel guilty for my negligence," she explained. Even her family reminded her of the importance of follow-ups. Now, she attends regular check-ups.
She's doing well now but sometimes feels exhausted. "But is the exhaustion because of cancer or work?" Baumeister ponders, currently filming five days a week for Sat.1 series "Die Spreewaldklinik", her first big project since her illness. "Sometimes I can hardly believe it's happening," she said. "They chose a cancer-stricken alcoholic for this role!" She hopes the industry understands this as a sign: "I'm feeling good, I'm back, and I'm ready to take on any role."
Muriel wrote about her alcoholism in her 2019 memoir "Hinfallen ist keine Schande, nur Liegenbleiben." She celebrated seven years of sobriety in October. "I feel great," she said in the "Bunte" interview.
As for her personal life, Muriel is happy being single. "I'm not looking for a man or a woman. I'm content as I am," she insisted. "I'm just single and happy with it. That's all there is to it." She's had three significant relationships in her life. Muriel has been married three times. Her son was born in 1993 from her marriage to actor Rainer Strecker. She has a daughter born in 2006, whose father is actor Pierre Besson. She became a mother to another daughter in 2014.
Muriel comes from a family of actors and began her acting career as a student. Her career started in the 90s with TV series like "A House in Tuscany", "Three Ladies from the Grill", "The Old Fox", or "Derrick". Though she also appeared in several films, television remained her primary artistic home - ranging from "The Country Doctor" to "The Mountain Doctor", from "The Dream Ship" to "The Dream Hotel", and from "Soko" to "Tatort".
Despite the challenges, Muriel Baumeister continues to battle her cancer diagnosis, having revealed her breast cancer journey in 2023 and now being cancer-free. However, she admitted to skipping some follow-up appointments, recognizing her role as an imperfect patient in her cancer journey.
