Threat letters, the Tokio Hotel have pressed charges for harassment. So how far are these fanatics ready to go, out of love for their idols? Why do the Tokio Hotel fear for their lives?
Report by Raphaël Tresanini and Simone Mortimer.
On this video filmed last April by the surveillance camera of a gas station in Hamburg, Tom Kaulitz, member of the band Tokio Hotel, hits one of his fans.
According to the video, Tom Kaulitz from Tokio Hotel has hit a young woman in the face with his fist.
Perrine : When he hit me, I fell on the ground.
An aggression for which the guitarist has been condemned last Monday. Yet Tom Kaulitz claims that he is the victim. This fan and her friends harass his band on a daily basis.
Girl 1: They were there. They’re over there.
Girl 2: No they’re not there.
Girl 3: Bill’s house…
Waiting in front of their house, car chasing, attacking their family, threat letters… for more than a year, the band Tokio Hotel lives in terror of these young women.
Tom: They are not fans, but highly disturbed persons who really need to get medical help.
Bill: We get used to always being surrounded by bodyguards. We can never move alone.
Are the Tokio Hotel in danger? Who are these girls who terrorize them? Why do they wear masks?
Amélie De Menou, Gala journalist: They really want to push them past their limit in order to make them react.
Let’s find out why the Tokio Hotel fear for their lives today.
Last week in Belgium, Tokio Hotel fans have been camping for 5 days in front of the venue where the band, who is in the middle of their European tour, will perform
Fan: We come in advance because we want to make sure to be in the front row during the concert. It’s important for me.
Tokio Hotel are four German boys from 21 to 23 years old whose career exploded in 2005.
If their music doesn’t provoke the critics’ enthusiasm, the personalities of the singer Bill and his twin brother Tom, the guitarist, are fascinating.
With his androgynous manga hero’s style, Bill became a teen idol. These fans’ fervor did not falter since the band’s beginnings.
Blonde fan: Even if it’s been a year since they’ve come here, we’re still there.
Brunette fan: Yes we sleep here. I won’t move until I see them, that’s clear.
Lulzy hat fan: We’re so used to see them that gradually, it becomes a need. It’s like a drug.
It’s to these fans that the Tokio Hotel owe their success, so they do everything to keep their devotion going.
Tom: Each concert, some fans come to see us backstage. It’s pretty simple, we organize a random draw to know who will meet us.
Bill: We always try to give time to our fans. When we arrive somewhere, we’re in a rush of course, but we always accept to write them a word or to take photos with them.
(2006 era Bill speaking, they so don’t do that anymore )
On its own website, the band has its own TV channel: backstage videos, interviews, the audience can follow Tokio Hotel’s adventures. A rare interactivity with the fans that now backfires against them.
Engerrand Sabot: One thing leading to another, they always want more. Today, some fans go in the gardens of the music labels, in the gardens of the recording studios, they always do more.
Amélie De Menou: There’s a kind of escalation in the production of images, of photos, and in the proximity that one can have.
Stalker: Look, that’s Bill’s house, a historical site
On internet, the fans post the videos of their exploits like trophies to show how far they can go for their idols.
Stalker: Bill’s house. We’ll try to go in. We’ll see Bill’s mother. Do I start going?
Stalker1: Bill looked at me
Stalker2: Seriously?
Stalker1: Yes.
Stalker2: Did he flip you the bird?
Stalker1: No he didn’t.
Stalker: So we’ve left our trace.
Some people have insulted the French. Here “French are shit.” It’s not true.
And here, the studio!
Wait, he’s taking the bag out.
Residence, recording studio, friends and family’s houses, in this Tokio Hotel stalking, the more determined are a small group of French fans
Girl 1: They were there. They’re over there. They are parked but they haven’t left.
Girl 2: They’re no longer there. He must have heard us run.
Perrine: The more the fans see them, the happier they are. There’s a kind of challenge between the fans, seeing them the most. Some fans even count the number of times they’ve seen them.
And Perrine knows what she’s talking about, with her group of fans, she didn’t hesitate to leave France and her family to move in Germany, in Hamburg, Their idols’ city. Their goal: Be as close as possible to the Tokio Hotel daily.
Stalker1: He’s gaining speed, he’s gaining speed!
Stalker2: It’s him?
Stalker1: Yes it is.
Stalker2: It’s not him.
Stalker1: Yes, he’s coming. *horn* Not even a look.
Sarah, ex-roommate of one of the Afghans on tour: At the beginning, it was just for fun, they were trying to provoke a reaction, but not necessarily a negative one, for instance, making them smile, laugh. And when they saw that there was absolutely no reaction, they went further and when they saw that it was still not working, it escalated and they didn’t know when to stop. It went very far.
Amélie De Menou: They don’t scream “Bill I love you,” or “Tom I want to spend my life with you,” but “I’ll get you! (aggressive meaning)” and “I’ll be there” and “You’ll see, I’ll make your life a nightmare.” They also write letters, they leave messages in the letterbox.
Next week will be a little nightmare! Attention, attention, we’re not happy. We’re getting impatient. Do you understand us?
Love turns to hate, the fans name themselves the Afghans on Tour and mask their face to act more freely. Several Afghans on Tour prefer leaving the group, one of them remember the time when she thought things were going too far.
Ex-Afghan: They noticed that wearing scarves, the fact that they couldn’t see them, it could maybe scare them. They bought white masks that reminded of the US killers and they started wearing these masks during the car chasing and they saw that it scared them and it delighted them.
Engerrand Sabot: They have toughened their position. At the beginning they were throwing stones in the window glasses, throwing bricks in the twins’ mother’s house.
A terror campaign that reached a no-return point last spring. On this video, the mother of Bill and Tom Kaulitz, the Tokio Hotel twins, is fighting with the Afghans on Tour, in front of her house.
Sarah : The mother had come to film them, just to prove that they were there all the time and so that we can clearly see their faces. And that’s the reason they attacked the mother, to get the phone that was used to film them back.
Overwrought, the Tokio Hotel boys decide to start a judiciary procedure to force those extreme fans to stay away from them, a measure that hasn’t changed the girls’ behavior at all, they keep on harassing the twins, until April 15 when everything changed.
Elizabeth Elkin-Vincent, Closer journalist: Tom Kaulitz, one of the twins of Tokio Hotel was going back home, and stopped at a gas station to fill his car. The Afghans were on his trail, just behind him, and one of them walked to the car. She claims that she asked for an autograph, that’s what she says, and he had a breakdown. It seems that he threw a lit cigarette out of the car.
Engerrand Sabot: They take that very badly, and in a fit of rage, the leader picked the cigarette and crushed it on Tom’s car. At that moment, he loses his calm. He gets out of the car and inflict a severe correction to the leader.”
The fan can now present herself as a victim. She presses charges for assault and battery (aggravated assault?) and get a lawyer. With her friends, she claims that she never harassed Tokio Hotel and that they are fans like the others.
Report by Raphaël Tresanini and Simone Mortimer.
On this video filmed last April by the surveillance camera of a gas station in Hamburg, Tom Kaulitz, member of the band Tokio Hotel, hits one of his fans.
According to the video, Tom Kaulitz from Tokio Hotel has hit a young woman in the face with his fist.
Perrine : When he hit me, I fell on the ground.
An aggression for which the guitarist has been condemned last Monday. Yet Tom Kaulitz claims that he is the victim. This fan and her friends harass his band on a daily basis.
Girl 1: They were there. They’re over there.
Girl 2: No they’re not there.
Girl 3: Bill’s house…
Waiting in front of their house, car chasing, attacking their family, threat letters… for more than a year, the band Tokio Hotel lives in terror of these young women.
Tom: They are not fans, but highly disturbed persons who really need to get medical help.
Bill: We get used to always being surrounded by bodyguards. We can never move alone.
Are the Tokio Hotel in danger? Who are these girls who terrorize them? Why do they wear masks?
Amélie De Menou, Gala journalist: They really want to push them past their limit in order to make them react.
Let’s find out why the Tokio Hotel fear for their lives today.
Last week in Belgium, Tokio Hotel fans have been camping for 5 days in front of the venue where the band, who is in the middle of their European tour, will perform
Fan: We come in advance because we want to make sure to be in the front row during the concert. It’s important for me.
Tokio Hotel are four German boys from 21 to 23 years old whose career exploded in 2005.
If their music doesn’t provoke the critics’ enthusiasm, the personalities of the singer Bill and his twin brother Tom, the guitarist, are fascinating.
With his androgynous manga hero’s style, Bill became a teen idol. These fans’ fervor did not falter since the band’s beginnings.
Blonde fan: Even if it’s been a year since they’ve come here, we’re still there.
Brunette fan: Yes we sleep here. I won’t move until I see them, that’s clear.
Lulzy hat fan: We’re so used to see them that gradually, it becomes a need. It’s like a drug.
It’s to these fans that the Tokio Hotel owe their success, so they do everything to keep their devotion going.
Tom: Each concert, some fans come to see us backstage. It’s pretty simple, we organize a random draw to know who will meet us.
Bill: We always try to give time to our fans. When we arrive somewhere, we’re in a rush of course, but we always accept to write them a word or to take photos with them.
(2006 era Bill speaking, they so don’t do that anymore )
On its own website, the band has its own TV channel: backstage videos, interviews, the audience can follow Tokio Hotel’s adventures. A rare interactivity with the fans that now backfires against them.
Engerrand Sabot: One thing leading to another, they always want more. Today, some fans go in the gardens of the music labels, in the gardens of the recording studios, they always do more.
Amélie De Menou: There’s a kind of escalation in the production of images, of photos, and in the proximity that one can have.
Stalker: Look, that’s Bill’s house, a historical site
On internet, the fans post the videos of their exploits like trophies to show how far they can go for their idols.
Stalker: Bill’s house. We’ll try to go in. We’ll see Bill’s mother. Do I start going?
Stalker1: Bill looked at me
Stalker2: Seriously?
Stalker1: Yes.
Stalker2: Did he flip you the bird?
Stalker1: No he didn’t.
Stalker: So we’ve left our trace.
Some people have insulted the French. Here “French are shit.” It’s not true.
And here, the studio!
Wait, he’s taking the bag out.
Residence, recording studio, friends and family’s houses, in this Tokio Hotel stalking, the more determined are a small group of French fans
Girl 1: They were there. They’re over there. They are parked but they haven’t left.
Girl 2: They’re no longer there. He must have heard us run.
Perrine: The more the fans see them, the happier they are. There’s a kind of challenge between the fans, seeing them the most. Some fans even count the number of times they’ve seen them.
And Perrine knows what she’s talking about, with her group of fans, she didn’t hesitate to leave France and her family to move in Germany, in Hamburg, Their idols’ city. Their goal: Be as close as possible to the Tokio Hotel daily.
Stalker1: He’s gaining speed, he’s gaining speed!
Stalker2: It’s him?
Stalker1: Yes it is.
Stalker2: It’s not him.
Stalker1: Yes, he’s coming. *horn* Not even a look.
Sarah, ex-roommate of one of the Afghans on tour: At the beginning, it was just for fun, they were trying to provoke a reaction, but not necessarily a negative one, for instance, making them smile, laugh. And when they saw that there was absolutely no reaction, they went further and when they saw that it was still not working, it escalated and they didn’t know when to stop. It went very far.
Amélie De Menou: They don’t scream “Bill I love you,” or “Tom I want to spend my life with you,” but “I’ll get you! (aggressive meaning)” and “I’ll be there” and “You’ll see, I’ll make your life a nightmare.” They also write letters, they leave messages in the letterbox.
Next week will be a little nightmare! Attention, attention, we’re not happy. We’re getting impatient. Do you understand us?
Love turns to hate, the fans name themselves the Afghans on Tour and mask their face to act more freely. Several Afghans on Tour prefer leaving the group, one of them remember the time when she thought things were going too far.
Ex-Afghan: They noticed that wearing scarves, the fact that they couldn’t see them, it could maybe scare them. They bought white masks that reminded of the US killers and they started wearing these masks during the car chasing and they saw that it scared them and it delighted them.
Engerrand Sabot: They have toughened their position. At the beginning they were throwing stones in the window glasses, throwing bricks in the twins’ mother’s house.
A terror campaign that reached a no-return point last spring. On this video, the mother of Bill and Tom Kaulitz, the Tokio Hotel twins, is fighting with the Afghans on Tour, in front of her house.
Sarah : The mother had come to film them, just to prove that they were there all the time and so that we can clearly see their faces. And that’s the reason they attacked the mother, to get the phone that was used to film them back.
Overwrought, the Tokio Hotel boys decide to start a judiciary procedure to force those extreme fans to stay away from them, a measure that hasn’t changed the girls’ behavior at all, they keep on harassing the twins, until April 15 when everything changed.
Elizabeth Elkin-Vincent, Closer journalist: Tom Kaulitz, one of the twins of Tokio Hotel was going back home, and stopped at a gas station to fill his car. The Afghans were on his trail, just behind him, and one of them walked to the car. She claims that she asked for an autograph, that’s what she says, and he had a breakdown. It seems that he threw a lit cigarette out of the car.
Engerrand Sabot: They take that very badly, and in a fit of rage, the leader picked the cigarette and crushed it on Tom’s car. At that moment, he loses his calm. He gets out of the car and inflict a severe correction to the leader.”
The fan can now present herself as a victim. She presses charges for assault and battery (aggravated assault?) and get a lawyer. With her friends, she claims that she never harassed Tokio Hotel and that they are fans like the others.
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