his friend, his brother Tom and Tokio Hotel

Star portrait

Around 20 years ago – at the age of just under 15 – Bill Kaulitz became famous as the lead singer of the band Tokio Hotel. Since then he has experienced all the bright and dark sides of rock star life. However, music is by no means his only mainstay. With the award-winning podcast “Kaulitz Hills – Mustard from Hollywood” he goes on air weekly with his brother Tom Kaulitz and reports from Los Angeles about his everyday life and love life.

Here you can find all information about Bill Kaulitz.

Image: IMAGO/Alexander Franz

Bill Kaulitz earlier: Are Bill and Tom identical twins?

Bill Kaulitz spent the first years of his life in Leipzig with his identical twin brother Tom. When his parents separated, the twins moved with their mother Simone Kaulitz and her new partner to Loitsche, about 30 kilometers north of Magdeburg.

It became apparent early on that Bill was not your average child. With make-up and extravagant clothing, he stood out in his home village. “We were often met with strong hostility,” he said in an interview with “Stern”. And further: “When I started school, the boys fell in love with me and wrote me love letters. When they found out I wasn’t a girl, they were in for a treat. There are lots of stories like that.”

Young Bill sought the spotlight from the start. Supported by their stepfather, the musician Gordon Trümper, the twins say they wrote their first song lyrics at the age of seven and performed as the duo “Black Question Mark” at city festivals and private parties. From the beginning, Bill took on the role of lead singer. At a gig in Magdeburg they met Gustav Schäfer and Georg Listing, with whom they founded the band Devilish in 2001.

Tokio Hotel: How did Bill Kaulitz become famous?

At the age of 13 (2003) Bill Kaulitz took part in the Sat.1 casting show “Star Search”. With his interpretation of “It’s Raining Men” he was eliminated in the round of 16, but attracted the attention of music manager Peter Hoffmann, who eventually signed him and his band.

So Devilish eventually became Tokio Hotel – and with their first single “Through the Monsun” and the accompanying debut album “Schrei” they promptly achieved mega success in 2005: They topped the single and album charts in Austria and Germany and also landed in other countries such as Switzerland, Belgium, France and the Netherlands top ten successes.

Bill Kaulitz: Farewell to Germany

Overnight, Tokio Hotel became sought-after stars at home and abroad and from then on graced the cover of the youth magazine “Bravo” almost every week. Their success was so great that the twins eventually dropped out of school in 2006. They later obtained their secondary school diploma via correspondence courses. Two more albums followed (“Zimmer 483”, 2007 and “Humanoid”, 2009), but the dark side of fame was not long in coming.

Bill Kaulitz admitted in an interview with “Stern” that the public interest overwhelmed her as a teenager. “On the one hand, of course, it was nice that we had so many fans, but there was no life for us away from the stage.”

This was followed by a move to Hamburg, but even there they weren’t safe from obsessive fans. According to “Spiegel”, various stalking incidents, attacks against her mother and a break-in in her Hamburg villa were the reason for the career break in 2010 and the escape into the anonymity of Los Angeles. The twins still live there today.

The step to the USA was enormously important, Bill emphasizes today – both for her personal and professional development. “I would do it all again,” says Bill Kaulitz in the “Stern” interview. In 2014, Tokio Hotel finally returned with their fourth album “Kings of Suburbia”, and “Dream Machine” was released in 2017. As a solo artist, Bill Kaulitz also released several singles and the EP “I’m Not Ok” under the pseudonym “Billy”.

Podcast and TV: What is Bill Kaulitz doing today?

Tokio Hotel have now released their sixth album (“2001”, 2022), have been on tour again and play regularly at festivals. But music is no longer the Kaulitz twins’ only mainstay.

Since August 2021, Bill and his brother Tom have been on air with the weekly podcast “Kaulitz Hills – Mustard from Hollywood”, for which they were awarded the German Podcast Prize as best newcomer in 2022. Bill Kaulitz has also already written his memoirs: his biography “Career Suicide: My First Thirty Years” was published in 2021.

The twins are appearing more and more frequently on television: in the 10th season of “DSDS” (RTL, 2013), Bill and Tom sat as jurors next to Dieter Bohlen. In 2019, Bill was a co-juror alongside his sister-in-law Heidi Klum on “Queen of Drags” (ProSieben) and in 2019 and 2021 he was a guest judge on their show “GNTM”. In 2023, Bill and Tom took part in the double chair of the coaches on “The Voice of Germany” (ProSieben) place.

In the same year, the successful twins got their first music show, “That’s My Jam” (RTL), which was awarded the German Television Prize. Most recently they successfully aired on Netflix in 2024 with the reality documentary “Kaulitz & Kaulitz”. A second season has already been confirmed. However, the twins had less success with “The Superduper Show” (ProSieben): the show, in which celebrities develop show formats together with children, was temporarily removed from the program after just one episode.

Love and relationships: Who is Bill Kaulitz’s boyfriend?

There was speculation about Bill Kaulitz’s sexuality early on, but he didn’t comment on it for a long time. In 2021, he explained in an interview with RTL that he did not want to be restricted on this issue. “I’ve been in love with a man, I’ve been in love with a woman, I’ve had both […] That’s why I’d like a new drawer to be invented – or we just get rid of them all.”

In his podcast, Bill speaks openly about past love affairs and affairs. However, he never mentions names. Every now and then he discussed his single existence – a status that the musician apparently doesn’t like. “I would like a wedding, a great partner at my side. Who knows if that will happen,” he said in an interview with “Welt”. His biggest fear is being alone.

But the single life now seems to be over: In his podcast in September, Bill Kaulitz casually let it slip that he was in a relationship with a man. It was not initially revealed who it was. In October he was a guest on the “Baby Got Business” podcast and Here it became obvious that the model Marc Eggers is his partner. The two had previously attended Oktoberfest together.