Confetti, but different this time!

15 days of non-stop hosting - Or flying around the world six times. A total of 360 hours of TV presence per year is no small feat, yet it’s exactly what Madita van Hülsen has wanted to do since she was 14: be a TV host. Back then, MTV and VIVA ushered in a new era, and despite her young age, the Hamburg native went to her first casting full of big plans. “I wasn’t chosen, which was devastating, but I was simply too young.”

Later, she trained as a communications specialist, worked in advertising and the music industry, and took a break in New York. At 25, she faced her first life crisis—so she changed direction, found her way onto television through weather forecasting, and gradually established herself as a host for various TV and event formats. In 2011, she also became the editor-in-chief and publisher of the interview magazine Ideal!. Her list of interviewees ranged from Daniel Craig and Julianne Moore to Helge Schneider, Peter Maffay, and Tim Mälzer. Even today, she lives her passion: telling people’s life stories.

Not above anything - Madita van Hülsen grew up in Hamburg, but thanks to her Austrian mother, she regularly spent her holidays in eastern Styria. “I have many beautiful childhood memories of that time,” she says. Her grandfather, a beekeeper, lived in Dechantskirchen, right across from a farm. “Like Heidi, I used to fetch milk there in the mornings.” Her mother was a dental technician, her father an insurance salesman.

What values did her parents instill in her? “I honestly think they did a lot of things right. They were strict and consistent but also very loving. They taught me values I want to pass on, too.” Politeness was one of them, diligence another. “Both of them worked hard, and I knew that nothing in life comes for free. I was never above doing any job—I even cleaned stairwells in my early career just to get closer to my dream of working in television.”

Today, at 43, she is a familiar face on TV in various formats. Starting in 2025, she will host Abenteuer Leben täglich on Kabel Eins—a colorful mix of recipes, DIY tips, and travel topics—now on a daily basis. She doesn’t really have a typical work routine. Filming days, including travel to Munich, can last up to 16 hours, and weekends are not necessarily free. “But it’s incredibly exciting—I love people, and I love my job. I enjoy being in the studio, but I also love being out on location for reports. Work doesn’t drain my energy.”

What does drain her energy, however, is constantly being on the road, dealing with travel delays, and spending nights away from home. “Sometimes, I come home just to sleep four hours in my own bed before taking my son to daycare.”

Self-fulfilling prophecy - Madita says she went into motherhood “completely naive.” “I have always been a very organized person. I don’t see myself as a workaholic—I simply enjoy what I do. When I was pregnant, I thought: If you organize yourself well, you’ll manage. But of course, you don’t manage when you’re dealing with sinus infections four times and stomach bugs eight times. It was like a self-fulfilling prophecy—the one thing I feared most, not being able to sleep, became reality.”

Her baby didn’t sleep at all. “For the first one and a half to two years, no matter how late it was, I flew back from every shoot just so my husband could get at least two hours of sleep. And maybe I could, too.”

An exhausting journey from doctor to doctor began, but no one believed them. After a year, utterly exhausted, the couple started a video diary—finally gaining attention and getting admitted to a baby psychiatry unit. But the biggest breakthrough came one evening at home: Tjorven preferred to sleep alone. From then on, things slowly improved—one tiny step at a time.

“The challenges of that early phase were so overwhelming that having a second child was never an option for us. The carefree way we used to see life—throwing confetti every day and treating life like a party—definitely changed. But now I throw confetti with my son, and that’s just as fun.”

Despite everything, she has kept her humor. She frequently shares brutally honest glimpses into her family life on social media. Tjorven has even become her favorite baking buddy. “Baking is kind of like building,” Madita muses. “The ingredients react with each other and only come together to form something when combined.”

She proved her skills on Das große Promibacken 2024 (The Great Celebrity Bake Off) on SAT.1—where she won the competition. And next spring, there will be even more sweet moments: her cookie cookbook will be published, featuring over 60 recipes ranging from breakfast cookies to snack ideas and special instructions for kids. “Cookies are always a good idea—I love bringing them as a gift whenever I visit someone.”

Madita’s life is a mix of loud and quiet moments - She gives space and a voice to a broad range of topics. When a friend died at the age of 18, she experienced firsthand how people avoided talking about death.

Bringing death into everyday conversation and breaking the silence surrounding grief became her mission. In 2013, she and her colleague Anemone Zeim founded Germany’s first grief agency, Vergiss Mein Nie (Forget Me Never). As a trained grief counselor, she wants to take mourning out of the taboo zone and open up more positive ways to deal with it. “This topic doesn’t necessarily need a black border around it—sometimes, it can be framed with confetti instead.”

With so many passions and emotional ups and downs—how does she find time for her relationship? A regular date night with her husband Björn, a civil engineer, is a must. “I make sure of it. You have to keep that little spark alive, keep the fire burning,” she says firmly.

Her positive outlook on life helps immensely, and it’s something she truly embodies. As it says on her website: “Some people say that even after Madita leaves a room, her smile lingers in the air for a while. And that’s something you take with you.”