A jump from the stratosphere made Felix Baumgartner world famous, and since then he has repeatedly sailed too low with public statements.
In recent days, the Red Bull shooting star has hurled rude insults at the editor-in-chief of the Viennese weekly newspaper “Falter”. The trigger: “Falter” editor-in-chief Florian Klenk announced on Facebook that he was suffering from Corona despite five vaccinations, but that the course was mild. Whereupon Baumgartner shared Klenk’s post as a screenshot and publicly called the Viennese journalist a moron. He posted the verbatim: “You must be a real idiot if you are vaccinated five (!) times, keep getting Corona and then defend the vaccination. Bravo Florian Klenk.” Among other things, he added “pharmaHure” as a hashtag.
Klenk threatens to sue
Reason enough for Florian Klenk to not only rail against Baumgartner, but against every single person who shared the post on Facebook. The Viennese journalist followed up with a “media law training” in another posting. “Anyone who shares the post that says I am a ‘pharmaceutical whore’ and a ‘firm idiot’ is spreading this slander and insult and is making themselves liable to compensation under media law, criminal prosecution and civil liability.”
Klenk is now offering Baumgartner and everyone indirectly involved a settlement: He will refrain from suing if everyone donates 500 euros to the Vienna “momo children’s hospice” within 48 hours. The posting was shared 115 times – this could mean donations of 57,500 euros for the children’s hospice.
It didn’t take long for Baumgartner to respond. On Sunday evening, the Salzburg resident added fuel to the fire and sent a public message to Klenk, again via Facebook: “Dear Mr. Klenk, I will not comply with your request for donations any more than I will respond to the call for a corona vaccination. But I would still like to accommodate you and pay for your next five corona vaccinations. I’ll throw the booster on top as an apology.”
Baumgartner and social media
This wasn’t the first time that Baumgartner had exhibited behavioral problems on social media: back in 2012, he wanted a “moderate dictatorship” instead of a parliamentary democracy. He recommended Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán for the Nobel Peace Prize. He likes to rail against refugees on Facebook. After the incident in Steyregg surrounding a fire brigade operation with underage asylum seekers, he wrote about the “shitty rabble” who should be deported immediately. He accused Justice Minister Alma Zadić of abuse of office, and Environment Minister Leonore Gewessler (both Greens) was the “slut of the week”.
