Lutz van der Horst: Star from the “Today Show” is 50

Satirist, comedian, moderator, speaker, author – Lutz van der Horst (50) has established himself as a diverse part of the German television industry in his career. He has become particularly well known as a satirical outer reporter of the ZDF satirical program “Today Show”. Since the end of 2009, the Cologne team, which has already been awarded multiple awarded, has had many politicians with their charming, ironic questions. However, he does not rest on this success.

Lutz van der Horst, born on August 20, 1975, grew up in Cologne, studied German studies and English there and started his career in the media early. He worked as an author for successful formats such as “Rent a Pocher”, “TV Total” and “Switch Reloaded”. First behind the scenes, he also ventured in front of the camera for the first time in 2001. As a “blashase” in the pink bunny costume, he quickly became a crowd favorite at “TV Total”. Van der Horst already demonstrated quick wit, humor and situation comedy. As “Günni” he delivered the most absurd street surveys.

If he still had Otto normal citizens on the microphone at “TV Total”, he has been making politicians out of the concept for the “today’s show” since 2009. He shows full commitment and even entered the SPD in front of the camera in 2016, which brought him a lot of attention. As the Friday evening program announced later, he has now left the party again.

In any case, he is an integral part of the “today show” presented by Oliver Welke (59). In the summer of 2025 he was also allowed to take over some special editions. He moderated about two episodes of the new format “Today Show Extra – The Quiz”, in which two politicians each demonstrated their political knowledge. The first edition was a great success. Van der Horst was able to lure an average of 2.17 million viewers from 10:30 p.m. in front of the screens.

In addition, the comedian also likes to demonstrate in completely different formats. In the spring of 2025, for example, he took part in Prime Video in the sixth season of “Lol: Last One Laughing”. In June, together with “Let’s Dance” Juror Joachim Llambi (61), he represented moderator Andrea “Kiwi” Kiewel (60) at the “ZDF television garden”.

The TV thousand passassa is a confessed fan of horror films and has a huge DVD collection at home. In 2022, he moderated the “SAW” series on Tele5. But also when it comes to jungle camp, from the Horst. Since 2022 he has been a guest at “I’m a star – the hour after” (RTL) and analyzed the events on the celebrity camp fire. His funny and pointed expertise led him to see a number of spectators as the successor to Daniel Hartwich (47) as the moderator of the jungle camp. As is well known, Jan Köppen (42) took over the post alongside Sonja Zietlow (57).

As strong as Lutz van der Horst has been represented on the matt slice for more than two decades – he keeps his private life astonishingly consistently out of the public. It is not known whether he is forgiven or even married.

He also rarely gives private insights, but prefers to focus on his professional projects. But he also has enough to report. One thing is also certain in the new decade of life: there will be no serious format with it. Because as he stated in 2015: “Serious others can do better.”