Until recently, viewers of the jungle camp wondered whether Martin Semmelrogge (67) would still be the biggest of the announced names. RTL has now officially announced that the "Das Boot" star will no longer be a jungle resident this year: Semmelrogge "will no longer move into the jungle camp in 2023. Unfortunately, he did not make it to Australia," says the homepage and the sender's Instagram account.

The actor had "just landed back in Germany (Frankfurt Airport) and is on his way to Mallorca". Semmelrogge was the only one of the twelve participants who was not granted an entry permit, and he was stuck in Doha until the very end. Sonja Zietlow and Jan Köppen explained in the first issue of "I'm a star – get me out of here!" that he had not yet been issued a visa. 2023 and joked that Semmelrogge had "been in Qatar longer than the German national team". Perhaps his criminal record led to the decision of the Australian authorities, the commentator duo continued to speculate.

It is therefore clear that twelve celebrities will have to fight their way through the Australian undergrowth this year, not 13. While Semmelrogge's participation was still pending, RTL surprisingly pulled another candidate out of the hat with jungle show runner-up Djamila Rowe (55). . Possibly it was already clear at this point that the Semmelrogge case was proving to be more complicated than initially assumed. At the beginning of the confusion about the star, RTL said that the delay was due to "production reasons". At that time, people were apparently still in good spirits, being able to transport bread rye to the camp with a slight delay.