Bruce Darnell is simply iconic. He became famous as an extravagant catwalk coach on Germany’s Next Top Model. With his fiery manner and unmistakable accent, he really heated up the young models. He promptly strutted into the hearts of the TV audience and secured a place in the starry sky of TV legends. Even decades after the GNTM success, he is still on everyone’s lips. Now he’s back with The Traitors – Trust Nobody! finally back on TV. What many don’t know: Behind the successful glamor life lies a tragic fate.
With The Traitors he wants to show what he’s made of: Bruce Darnell is back on TV
Bruce Darnell was everywhere in the 2000s. The elegant catwalk king became really famous in 2006 through his legendary appearances on GNTM – since then he has appeared on various TV shows. As a juror on Das Supertalent, he showed his emotional side for years and proved to the audience that behind the perfect model facade there is a person with depth.
Now Bruce Darnell is on the RTL hit Die Verräter and can prove whether he will also cut a good figure in a tough format about lies and deceit. (Check out the entire Traitor cast here.) In any case, his appearance has hardly changed over the years: The now 67-year-old still looks the same as we met him almost 20 years ago.
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Tragic story behind the TV success: Bruce Darnell had to cope with severe blows of fate
We know Bruce Darnell as a confident, tough catwalk professional who knows exactly how to present himself in front of the cameras. However, hardly anyone suspects that deep psychological wounds are hidden behind the glamor lifestyle.
Even as a child, Darnell had to go through difficult times in Texas, USA. The entertainer revealed to ZEIT, that he never met his biological father. For many years he had thought another man was his father – it was only after his death that he learned the truth from his mother: “I was an illegitimate child.” That’s why his mother neglected him: “Because I always reminded her of this affair.” Worse still, he was regularly called ugly because of it.
He also experienced discrimination at home because he has darker skin than his siblings. Bruce remembers in the ZEIT interview and reveals that he was “beaten” as a child. Today the TV star has hardly any contact with his family anymore – no wonder, considering how much suffering the TV star had to deal with at a young age.
Success and sadness are close together: Bruce Darnell fights his way onto TV
After school, the tall American joined the army and served as a paratrooper. Did he learn the tough discipline he needs for show business there? After his time in the army, Darnell moved to tranquil Bavaria, where he barely kept himself afloat with disco jobs. But a spontaneous invitation to a model casting should change everything.
Bruce had a meteoric rise as an international model and was able to make a name for himself. But unfortunately, even after jumping into the modeling business, life didn’t stop at him: Bruce lived in a loving relationship with his partner for 25 years, but in 2011 fate struck mercilessly: Darnell’s husband died of leukemia. He followed the ordeal up close, as he revealed on the NDR talk show in 2023. Since then, love hasn’t worked out – the attractive TV star has been single for over 10 years.