Charlotte Roche

Charlotte Elisabeth Grace Roche (born 18 March 1978 in High Wycombe, England) is a German television presenter, actress, singer and author. Life and career Roche, who is bilingual in English and German, is the daughter of an engineer and a politically and artistically active mother. She has lived since the age of eight in Germany having previously lived in London and the Netherlands. She grew up in the rather alternative cultural environment, the Lower Rhine region, in a family with liberal views.

Charlotte Elisabeth Grace Roche (born 18 March 1978 in High Wycombe, England) is a German television presenter, actress, singer and author. Life and career Roche, who is bilingual in English and German, is the daughter of an engineer and a politically and artistically active mother. She has lived since the age of eight in Germany having previously lived in London and the Netherlands. She grew up in the rather alternative cultural environment, the Lower Rhine region, in a family with liberal views. Her primary school was in Niederkrüchten.

In 1989 she went to the secondary school, St. Wolfhelm Gymnasium, in the neighbouring town of Schwalmtal. After the 8th grade she moved to Mönchengladbach, where she was educated at the Hugo Junkers Gymnasium in the suburb of Rheydt. She left school after the 11th grade.

She obtained initial stage experience in drama groups during her time at school. Roche left home in 1993 and founded with three female friends the garage rock group The Dubinskis. The members swore never to rehearse and never to appear in public. There followed a period where she undertook anything in order to scandalise - self mutilation in order to paint with blood, drug experiments, or shaving her head. Roche has a daughter, born in 2002, whose father Eric Pfeil was the producer and writer of Roche's programme Fast Forward and Der Kindergeburtstag ist vorbei! (The birthday party is over). Since 2007, Roche has been married to Martin Keß, co-founder of Brainpool, a media company in Cologne. As a writer Roche's book Feuchtgebiete (in English wetlands) was the world's best-selling novel in March 2008.

Partly autobiographical, it explores cleanliness, sex, and femininity and had sold over 500,000 copies in Germany by the end of the first quarter of 2008. For supporters it is an erotic literary classic; for critics it is cleverly marketed pornography. As a singer Roche featured in the single 1.2.3. ... with Bela B., from Bela's début album Bingo. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License and may also be available under the GNU FDL..