Personal and Later Life
Following the dissolution of East Germany, Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (Stasi) files were found to show that the secret police had worked hard to keep Witt from defecting by giving her cars, accommodations, and permitted travel. Witt found 3,000 pages on her life from the age of eight. Katarina Witt was later accused of being an informer for the Stasi secret police who met with her control agent even after the Berlin Wall fell.
In 1996, Witt had a cameo role in the movie Jerry Maguire. She also starred in a German-language movie called Princess on Ice. Witt provided the vocals for the theme song, "Skate With Me". Witt appeared as herself in two episodes of the TV comedy series Arli$$ that aired in 1997 and 1998.
In December 1998, Witt posed nude for Playboy magazine. The issue in which these photos were published was the second ever sold-out issue of the magazine. (The first sold-out issue was the inaugural one including photos of Marilyn Monroe.) Witt said she did not care for the "cute, pretty, ice princess image" of figure skaters and wanted to "change people's perceptions."
In 1998, Witt appeared in the movie Ronin in a small supporting role with several lines of script. Around this time, she also played a villain in an episode of the tongue-in-cheek television series, V.I.P. In November 2005, Witt published a novel, Only with Passion, in which she offers advice to a fictional young skater based on her many years of skating. Since October 2006, she has her own TV show, Stars auf Eis (Stars on Ice), on the German station ProSieben. She was invited to Istanbul as an honoured guest for the skating competition TV show called Buzda Dans (Dance on Ice) on 25 February 2007. On 3 December 2011, Witt was confirmed as a judge on the UK TV show, Dancing On Ice; she made her first appearance on 8 January 2012.
On 7 July 2007, Witt was a compere at the German segment of Live Earth. She headed Munich's unsuccessful bid to host the 2018 Winter Olympics.
Read more about this topic: Katarina Witt
Famous quotes containing the words personal and/or life:
“Let no guilty man escape, if it can be avoided.... No personal considerations should stand in the way of performing a duty.”
—Ulysses S. Grant (1822–1885)
“In ‘70 he married again, and I having, voluntarily, assumed the legal guilt of breaking my marriage contract, do cheerfully accept the legal penalty—a life of celibacy—bringing no charge against him who was my husband, save that he was not much better than the average man.”
—Jane Grey Swisshelm (1815–1884)