“You virtually raped me”: for 10 years, her husband published sexual “deepfakes” with her image, the appalling affair that shook Germany

This is the case that is shaking Germany in terms of sexist and sexual violence. Host and model Collien Fernandes announced this Thursday, March 19 that she had filed a complaint against her ex-husband Christian Ulmen for “assault, identity theft and defamation”, after he generated hundreds of “deepfakes” of a sexual nature in her image for around ten years. The weekly Der Spiegel published at the same time this Saturday a long investigation into this affair.

Collien Fernandes, 44, had been with actor and TV presenter Christian Ulmen, 50, since 2010. The couple married in June 2011, before welcoming a daughter the following year, and formed one of the most popular unions in the country. They announced their separation in September 2025, which ended in divorce in March. Until now, the reasons for their breakup had not been discussed publicly.

“For years, fake profiles were created in my name”

But the model spoke out in reaction to the rumors announcing the investigation by the German press: “For years, fake profiles were created in my name, someone sent (fake) nude photos and sexual videos of me, which appeared private and were intended to give the impression that I had taken naked photos and filmed myself during sexual intercourse.”

The host and actress discovered the existence of this content five years ago after being alerted to the broadcast of a pornographic video where a person in her likeness was having sexual relations with a group of men. She made these attacks public in 2023, to denounce the digital violence suffered by women. “Even while I was filming a documentary on the subject in 2024, the author continued his merry-go-round until the accounts were suspended by the platforms,” she further explains.

“My body was stolen for years”

In her publication, she mentions the creation of false profiles in her name, the sending of false photos and videos of a sexual nature generated by artificial intelligence, texts which call for rape, or even the hijacking of her voice by AI to create false pink phone conversations. One of the videos has been viewed more than 270,000 times. She then filed a complaint against X. “But all this time, the attacker was very close. His name: Christian Ulmen. The one she had married 15 years earlier.

Collien Fernandes claims that her ex-husband confessed the facts to her after filing a complaint to stop the investigation. According to his statements, he justified himself by saying that he had acted in this way because he “possessed” his wife. “Since he owned me, he could make me available to other men for sex,” she wrote. “My body was stolen for years. »

During an interview with Spiegel in December, the forty-year-old recounted the details of the affair for more than six hours, while “drinking cans of Red Bull,” details the German magazine. “It was me, it was me who did that,” he allegedly told his wife in December 2024, on Christmas Day, after reading an interview with his wife in a magazine which mentioned his complaint. The man, who refused to answer the weekly’s questions, was said to have become afraid of the legal consequences of his actions at that time.

A complaint filed in Spain, a country where deepfakes have already been punished

As the couple resided in Spain before their separation, the television woman filed a complaint on the other side of the Pyrenees, a country in which legislation on violence against women is particularly advanced. Around fifteen minors were sentenced by a Bajadoz court in 2024 after generating and disseminating photos of a sexual nature depicting some of their classmates. A 40-page brief was filed in the court of Palma de Mallorca, in the Balearic Islands, with the department responsible for prosecuting acts of violence against women. A preliminary investigation has been opened.

The actress has also been reporting psychological and physical violence from her ex-husband for several years. Several relatives of the couple confirm the words of Collien Fernandes, as well as her psychologist who has been following her for 3 years. Witnesses to a violent argument that occurred in 2023 near a café in Palma de Mallorca, during which the presenter was allegedly hit, also testified to the account given by the presenter. “You virtually raped me,” she wrote in a text message sent to her ex-husband and consulted by Der Spiegel.

The German magazine was still able to have access to an e-mail from Christian Ulmen, when he contacted a Berlin law firm. He claims in writing to have “unfortunately developed a sexual fetish” for around ten years, and admits to having created false profiles on social networks in the name of his wife. “He had sent his interlocutors videos available on freely accessible pornographic sites and whose protagonists resembled his wife. He evokes a impulse difficult to control at home, a abnormal behavior and says he regrets what he did,” explains the weekly.

A shock wave in Germany

The affair sparked strong reactions across the Rhine, with a widely followed demonstration this Sunday in Berlin against violence against women. On the signs of many demonstrators, we could read “Thank you Collien”, “Shame must change sides” or “It’s violence, not technology”. Between 6,000 and 13,000 people were counted in the procession, according to figures from the authorities and the organization.

More than 250 women in politics and the world of culture published an article this Monday morning in Der Spiegel to call for stricter laws against deepfakes and feminicides, with ten measures to be implemented urgently to protect victims.

Such acts will be criminalized in the future by a law on digital violence, which will be presented “in a very short time”, declared Eike Hosemann, spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice, at a press conference this Friday. “Criminal law is not as good as it should be, especially when it comes to deepfakes, but also other topics,” he added.