Separation: Klaus Eckel talks about it for the first time in “Walek wanders” on Ö3

2023-10-29 12:10:09

Vienna (OTS) – Nine months off the stage are behind him, now cabaret artist Klaus Eckel is back with a new program. Reason for the break: Major private changes – the separation from his wife. Klaus Eckel was a guest on “Walek wanders” on Ö3 today (October 29th) and talked about his separation for the first time: “We saw that love simply turned into friendship. And then you think about: Do you want to have another 20 years of friendship or should you draw a line under it. And we decided on the bottom line.”

“A book has a beginning and an end. For me, a relationship is like a book: It can have 200 pages, 400 pages, but it can also just be a very short booklet with seven pages or three nights. I like the expression that we have finished telling the story together. Then you close the book,” says Klaus Eckel. The 49-year-old and his wife closed the book. The cabaret artist spoke to Ö3 presenter Tom Walek for the first time about the separation: “It really hurt me because we also have two children. Of course we didn’t actually want that. You get married with the prospect of growing old together. This worked well in the Middle Ages because people died very young. Now that’s just a perspective until 90 or 100.”

A good separation, but with a lot of pain: “We parted quite amicably. That’s happiness. Maybe the pain would be even greater, I thought, if there was still friendship there. Because then you think, you’re losing a loved one as your closest reference person.” And: “Our relationship is very good because we did this in a phase in which not much porcelain has been broken yet. There were no affairs or third parties involved.” The reason for the separation was major personal changes and different developments:
“We simply had to recognize: the common intersection is too small to go through life and be happy.”

Eckel and his wife have done a lot to ensure that the relationship is friendly: “We got a lot of professional help. We simply treated ourselves to it and did it. From mediation to couples and separation therapies. We constantly sent each other articles about how to overcome this.” Love turned into friendship. And a life without love is unimaginable for the cabaret artist: “Very pathetic – but it is simply the most important feeling. Everything else is void. Where you live, where you sit, where you travel, what you have:
“Everything doesn’t matter when there’s love.”

The entire Ö3 interview is available online (oe3.orf.at) and soon as an Ö3 podcast on ORF-Sound:
Photos from “Walek wander” for download (© Hitradio Ö3/Tom Walek):