Rainer Gottwald fled first. He as the winner of "Celebrity Big Brother"? He had to digest that briefly in the quiet little room. So the 56-year-old rushed away with his sunglasses, a door slammed – and then all you could hear was a soft sniffle. In the end it was Micaela Schäfer – a professional nude model and his opponent – ​​who persuaded the boxing manager: "Rainer, let yourself be celebrated. Come out."

On the reality show "Promi Big Brother", more or less celebrities move into a house in Cologne-Ossendorf and somehow have to get along with each other there. Before the start, the blond boy Gottwald was one of the lesser-known candidates, which makes his success a bit of a surprise. Late on Wednesday evening he collects the most viewer votes and wins 100,000 euros.

Gottwald has a rather eventful biography, which led him from his birthplace Herbolzheim in Baden-Württemberg to Thailand, where he says he opened several water sports centers. In 2004 three of them were destroyed by the tsunami. The former kickboxer later returned to Germany and into the boxing industry. He should be known to connoisseurs from fights by his protégé Vincent Feigenbutz.

So Gottwald has seen and experienced a lot. The fact that he has now also won a reality show is incomprehensible to him at first. "Who on earth is calling for me? I'm such a little sausage!" he says in disbelief when the count is over. "I can't win this! Against so many celebrities."

The opponents included the erotic model Schäfer, who only had to admit defeat in the last vote and can be seen half-naked several times in the almost four-hour final show. Third place goes to reality contestant Sam Dylan, who unluckily fails a game in which he has to build the tallest possible tower of cups.

Fourth place goes to the "Deutschland sucht den Superstar" permanent candidate and king of the jungle Menderes Bagci, who had built up a chummy friendship with Gottwald. Bagci's fatality is that a game is about spooning 50 grams of gold dust onto a plate as precisely as possible without a scale. Bagci shovels a whole 280 grams on it.

In the days and weeks before, actress Katy Karrenbauer, football commentator Jörg Dahlmann and fragrance influencer Jeremy Fragrance had moved out of the house, which was constantly monitored by cameras, and which this year had three areas with different levels of comfort: attic, garage and loft.

Gottwald had said of his intentions on the show that "once in a lifetime" he didn't just want to be second. "I would have liked to prove to my dead father in heaven that I can be first," he said.

Apparently these thoughts come up again at the moment of success. "Dad, did you see it?" asks the boxing manager to the sky. "Now I've won something in my life, have you heard? I'm an old buck." Gottwald then actually hears a kind of supernatural voice - but it is that of "Big Brother" who, as the game director, gives instructions on the show. "You won. And I think he saw it," Gottwald lets her know.

It was the tenth season of "Celebrity Big Brother". It started on November 18th.