Seven-time Formula 1 World Champion Michael Schumacher has been out of the public eye since his skiing accident nearly 11 years ago left the racing icon with brain damage. His condition has been strictly private within the family. It is said that he is conscious, though struggles to communicate or recall memories. In April of 2023 German magazine Die Aktuelle published a “first interview” with Schumacher since his accident, including alleged quotes from him about his health and family, though it soon emerged that the interview was conducted with a generative AI.
The family filed suit in a Munich Labor Court against the magazine’s publishers, and this week the court has determined the Schumacher family will receive damages, according to Motorsport, possibly up to 200,000 euros. The family doesn’t really need 200,000 euros, so it’ll probably end up going to charity or something, if I had to guess.
The former Ferrari driver is said to be continuing to recover from the accident at home in Switzerland, and has not been out in public since leaving the hospital in 2014. Only the closest of family friends are allowed in the house to see Michael. In the 2021 Netflix documentary “Schumacher” his wife Corinna said, “We live together at home. We do therapy. We do everything we can to make Michael better and to make sure he’s comfortable, and to simply make him feel our family, our bond.”
Die Aktuelle editor-in-chief Anne Hoffman was fired over the AI interview. “This tasteless and misleading article should never have appeared,” the magazine publisher’s managing director Bianca Pohlmann wrote in a statement. “It in no way meets the standards of journalism that we and our readers expect from a publisher like Funke.”
Look, I’m willing to do a lot of dumb shit to get people to click on and read things I’ve written, but this is purely disgusting. Leave Michael Schumacher alone, you cretins.