{ "id": "epyz2f03x1", "slug": "princess-charming", "title": "Princess Charming", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.series", "label": "Series and fictional screen worlds", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.series" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.series.series_unscripted", "label": "Unscripted, reality, and web-native series", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.series.series_unscripted" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.series.series_unscripted.celebrity-lifestyle-court-reality", "label": "Celebrity, family, lifestyle, and court reality series", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.series.series_unscripted.celebrity-lifestyle-court-reality" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.series.series_unscripted.celebrity-lifestyle-court-reality.lifestyle-dating-and-docusoaps", "label": "Lifestyle, dating, and docusoaps", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.series.series_unscripted.celebrity-lifestyle-court-reality.lifestyle-dating-and-docusoaps" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.series.series_unscripted.celebrity-lifestyle-court-reality.lifestyle-dating-and-docusoaps.dating-and-matchmaking-series", "label": "Dating and matchmaking series", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.series.series_unscripted.celebrity-lifestyle-court-reality.lifestyle-dating-and-docusoaps.dating-and-matchmaking-series" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.weu.t2021.culture.performance.screen.series.series_unscripted", "label": "Western Europe · 2021 and later: Unscripted, reality, and web-native series", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t2021.culture.performance.screen.series.series_unscripted", "path": [ { "id": "geo.weu", "label": "Western Europe", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t2021", "label": "Western Europe · 2021 and later", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t2021" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t2021.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t2021.culture" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t2021.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t2021.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t2021.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t2021.culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t2021.culture.performance.screen.series", "label": "Series and fictional screen worlds", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t2021.culture.performance.screen.series" }, { "id": "geo.weu.t2021.culture.performance.screen.series.series_unscripted", "label": "Unscripted, reality, and web-native series", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.weu.t2021.culture.performance.screen.series.series_unscripted" } ] } ], "excerpt": "Princess Charming is a German RTL+ lesbian reality dating show (2021–2025, five seasons), the female counterpart to Prince Charming, with villa dates, necklace eliminations, and a 2026 pause after season 5.", "snippet": "Princess Charming is a German RTL+ lesbian reality dating show (2021–2025, five seasons), the female counterpart to Prince Charming, with villa dates, necklace eliminations, and a 2026 pause after season 5.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.series.series_unscripted.celebrity-lifestyle-court-reality.lifestyle-dating-and-docusoaps.dating-and-matchmaking-series", "markdown": "# Princess Charming\n\n**Princess Charming** is a German queer reality dating show in which a lesbian woman, the \"Princess\", searches for a partner among a group of mostly female, queer singles living together in a villa. It premiered on 25 May 2021 on the streaming service TVNow, now RTL+, as the female-led counterpart to the gay dating show *Prince Charming*, and ran for five seasons before RTL+ paused it in August 2026.[1](https://plus.rtl.de/princess-charming-p_6974) • [2](https://www.tvspielfilm.de/news/tv/tv-aus-rtl-setzt-princess-charming-vorerst-ab%2C13420653%2CApplicationArticle.html)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| First broadcast | 25 May 2021 on TVNow (now RTL+), Germany, in German[1](https://plus.rtl.de/princess-charming-p_6974) |\n| Premise | A lesbian \"Princess\" dates a cast of FLINTA* singles; eliminated contestants surrender their necklaces at the \"Ladies Night\"[1](https://plus.rtl.de/princess-charming-p_6974) |\n| Seasons | Five, each of 10 episodes of about 60 minutes, plus a reunion episode; season 5 added an eleventh episode[1](https://plus.rtl.de/princess-charming-p_6974) • [3](https://www.moviefone.com/tv-shows/princess-charming/51OZpPZwyVJ7mf3OEbFyE4/) |\n| Princesses | Irina Schlauch (2021), Hanna Sökeland (2022), Madleen Matthias (2023), Lea Hoppenworth (2024), Vanessa Borck (2025)[1](https://plus.rtl.de/princess-charming-p_6974) |\n| Production | Seapoint Productions for RTL+[1](https://plus.rtl.de/princess-charming-p_6974) |\n| Awards | Deutscher Fernsehpreis 2021 for \"Beste Unterhaltung Reality\"; Grimme Preis nomination 2022; nominated again for the Deutscher Fernsehpreis in 2026[1](https://plus.rtl.de/princess-charming-p_6974) • [2](https://www.tvspielfilm.de/news/tv/tv-aus-rtl-setzt-princess-charming-vorerst-ab%2C13420653%2CApplicationArticle.html) |\n| Status | No sixth season planned as of August 2026; a later return has not been ruled out[2](https://www.tvspielfilm.de/news/tv/tv-aus-rtl-setzt-princess-charming-vorerst-ab%2C13420653%2CApplicationArticle.html) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Seasons and outcomes\n\nSeason 1 followed the Cologne lawyer Irina Schlauch, courted by 20 applicants on Crete; she chose Lou Schaaf in the finale.[1](https://plus.rtl.de/princess-charming-p_6974) • [4](https://realitykosmos.de/shows/princess-charming/) Season 2 sent 19 candidates to Rhodes around the project manager Hanna Sökeland, who chose Jessica Huber.[1](https://plus.rtl.de/princess-charming-p_6974) • [4](https://realitykosmos.de/shows/princess-charming/) Season 3 centered on Madleen Matthias, courted by 20 singles, and ended with her choosing Elsa Latifaj.[1](https://plus.rtl.de/princess-charming-p_6974) • [4](https://realitykosmos.de/shows/princess-charming/) In season 4, Lea Hoppenworth met 20 singles in Thailand and ended the season without choosing a final partner.[1](https://plus.rtl.de/princess-charming-p_6974) • [4](https://realitykosmos.de/shows/princess-charming/)\n\n**Season 5.** The fifth season began on 24 July 2025 with the Berlin content creator Vanessa Borck, known online as Nessiontour, and 18 single women competing for her.[1](https://plus.rtl.de/princess-charming-p_6974) It became the season's defining story that Borck fell for a contestant who rejected her, and the season was terminated without a finale; Lotti was the last remaining candidate.[5](https://thecolu.mn/4907/princess-charming-rtl-cancels-lesbian-dating-show/) • [4](https://realitykosmos.de/shows/princess-charming/) A reunion episode, \"Das große Wiedersehen\", closed the season on 2 October 2025.[3](https://www.moviefone.com/tv-shows/princess-charming/51OZpPZwyVJ7mf3OEbFyE4/)\n\n## Format\n\nThe show follows the structure RTL established with *Der Bachelor* and *Die Bachelorette*, which by 2024 had reached their fourteenth and tenth seasons respectively. In 2019 the group launched *Prince Charming*, in which Nicolas Puschmann became the first lead courted exclusively by male suitors; *Princess Charming* transferred the concept to women in 2021.[1](https://plus.rtl.de/princess-charming-p_6974) The original plan called for a bisexual Princess and a mixed cast of men and women, but the production settled on an entirely female-read cast of FLINTA* people, an acronym covering women, lesbians, intersex, non-binary, trans, and agender people.[1](https://plus.rtl.de/princess-charming-p_6974)\n\nEach season, the Princess and roughly twenty contestants move into a villa on a vacation island. Season 1 was set on Crete, season 2 on Rhodes, and season 4 in Thailand on Koh Samui.[1](https://plus.rtl.de/princess-charming-p_6974) The Princess invites contestants on individual and group dates, and a group \"Happy Hour\" gives everyone a further chance to make an impression. At the end of each episode, the \"Ladies Night\" elimination decides who stays: necklaces replace the roses of *Der Bachelor* and the neckties of *Prince Charming*, and a contestant who receives none must leave the villa.[1](https://plus.rtl.de/princess-charming-p_6974) The final two contestants face the Princess in a finale, and a later reunion episode revisits whether the chosen couple stayed together.[1](https://plus.rtl.de/princess-charming-p_6974)\n\n## Broadcast and reception\n\nThe first season was still shown in full on free-to-air television with VOX in 2021; later seasons, after weak linear ratings, aired partly only online on RTL+ or on the niche channel VOXup.[5](https://thecolu.mn/4907/princess-charming-rtl-cancels-lesbian-dating-show/) The trade press described the format as the world's first dating show in which lesbian women stand at the center.[6](https://www.rnd.de/medien/trash-oder-aufklaerung-wie-princess-charming-bei-der-lesbisch-queeren-community-ankommt-U5WZX6DAKFFOLJN4SWKTACT5JU.html) Critics noted that contestants talk among themselves about their experiences as queer women and about transphobia, misogyny, and sexism, subjects rarely treated this directly in German television or streaming.[1](https://plus.rtl.de/princess-charming-p_6974)\n\nReception within the queer community has been mixed in a specific way. In her 2026 thesis at the [University of Vienna](https://www.edgepedia.org/university-of-vienna), Sophie Harrer examined queer femininity in the show and found that audiences prize it for making queer relationships more visible and more normalized, yet also see it as a strongly produced media product whose editing, dramaturgy, allocation of screen time, and casting decisions determine which kinds of queer femininity appear on screen, frequently following repeated role patterns; the show both upholds and sometimes subverts stereotypes.[7](https://utheses.univie.ac.at/detail/80102) Commentary in the *Tagesspiegel* criticized the first season's cast as presented as entirely cisgender, with gender diversity and identity not addressed in the main body of the show.[8](https://www.tagesspiegel.de/gesellschaft/queerspiegel/echte-vielfalt-sieht-anders-aus-8588299.html) A DWDL review placed the show against a measured deficit: a 2016 [University of Rostock](https://www.edgepedia.org/university-of-rostock) study of 800 German-language films and 3,500 hours of television found nearly 60 percent of characters defined as clearly heterosexual and about 40 percent with sexual orientation not addressed at all, leaving few characters readable as queer.[9](https://www.dwdl.de/meinungen/83692/princess_charming_wie_wunderbar_lesbische_liebe_sein_kann/)\n\n## Cancellation\n\nIn August 2026, RTL+ confirmed to the trade publication DWDL that no further season of *Princess Charming* was planned, after five seasons, while not ruling out a later return.[2](https://www.tvspielfilm.de/news/tv/tv-aus-rtl-setzt-princess-charming-vorerst-ab%2C13420653%2CApplicationArticle.html) The producer Yvonne Plume made the decision public on LinkedIn, writing that the team that had worked on the Charming formats for years had been dissolved and mourning \"a format that created visibility\" and \"a queer perspective that was unique in German television in this form\".[2](https://www.tvspielfilm.de/news/tv/tv-aus-rtl-setzt-princess-charming-vorerst-ab%2C13420653%2CApplicationArticle.html) The announcement came immediately after the show's nomination for the Deutscher Fernsehpreis in the category \"Beste Unterhaltung Reality\".[2](https://www.tvspielfilm.de/news/tv/tv-aus-rtl-setzt-princess-charming-vorerst-ab%2C13420653%2CApplicationArticle.html)\n\nThe show had already outlasted its male predecessor: *Prince Charming* ended in 2022 after three seasons and the spin-off *Charming Boys*.[10](https://www.filmstarts.de/tvstarts/nachrichten/1000220645.html) For the production company Seapoint, the pause followed other setbacks, including the loss of *Let's Dance* to [BBC Studios](https://www.edgepedia.org/bbc-studios) from 2028.[2](https://www.tvspielfilm.de/news/tv/tv-aus-rtl-setzt-princess-charming-vorerst-ab%2C13420653%2CApplicationArticle.html)\n\n## References\n\n1. [Princess Charming | Dating-Show online streamen, RTL+](https://plus.rtl.de/princess-charming-p_6974)\n2. [RTL+ setzt \"Princess Charming\" vorerst ab, TV Spielfilm / KUKKSI (28 August 2026)](https://www.tvspielfilm.de/news/tv/tv-aus-rtl-setzt-princess-charming-vorerst-ab%2C13420653%2CApplicationArticle.html)\n3. [Princess Charming – TV Series, Moviefone](https://www.moviefone.com/tv-shows/princess-charming/51OZpPZwyVJ7mf3OEbFyE4/)\n4. [Princess Charming: Staffeln, Cast und Stream, RealityKosmos](https://realitykosmos.de/shows/princess-charming/)\n5. [Princess Charming: RTL Cancels Lesbian Dating Show, TheColu.mn (1 September 2026)](https://thecolu.mn/4907/princess-charming-rtl-cancels-lesbian-dating-show/)\n6. [Trash oder Aufklärung? Wie \"Princess Charming\" bei der lesbisch-queeren Community ankommt, RND (12 November 2021)](https://www.rnd.de/medien/trash-oder-aufklaerung-wie-princess-charming-bei-der-lesbisch-queeren-community-ankommt-U5WZX6DAKFFOLJN4SWKTACT5JU.html)\n7. [Sophie Harrer: Leben, Liebe, Labels – queere Weiblichkeit im Reality-TV, University of Vienna thesis, 2026](https://utheses.univie.ac.at/detail/80102)\n8. [Datingshow \"Princess Charming\": Echte Vielfalt sieht anders aus, Tagesspiegel Queerspiegel](https://www.tagesspiegel.de/gesellschaft/queerspiegel/echte-vielfalt-sieht-anders-aus-8588299.html)\n9. [Princess Charming: Wie wunderbar lesbische Liebe sein kann, DWDL.de (20 July 2021)](https://www.dwdl.de/meinungen/83692/princess_charming_wie_wunderbar_lesbische_liebe_sein_kann/)\n10. [Trotz Auszeichnungen und Mega-Erfolg: RTL setzt Sendung überraschend nach 5 Staffeln ab, FILMSTARTS.de (1 September 2026)](https://www.filmstarts.de/tvstarts/nachrichten/1000220645.html)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Series and fictional screen worlds › Unscripted, reality, and web-native series › Celebrity, family, lifestyle, and court reality series › Lifestyle, dating, and docusoaps › Dating and matchmaking series*\n\n*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/princess-charming", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/princess-charming.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"Princess Charming\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/princess-charming. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[Princess Charming](https://www.edgepedia.org/princess-charming)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/princess-charming](https://www.edgepedia.org/princess-charming). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"Princess Charming\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/princess-charming. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "Princess Charming is a German RTL+ lesbian reality dating show, the female counterpart to Prince Charming, with villa dates, necklace eliminations, and a 2026 pause after season 5." }