This story reads like a fairy tale.
Once upon a time there was an illustrator who was fascinated by stories from an early age. Florentine Joop (49), youngest daughter of fashion tsar Wolfgang Joop (78).
This is not the only reason why the Potsdam children’s book author, together with author Holger Much (55), wrote and illustrated the fairy tale book “And if we haven’t died…” (17.90 euros, Edition Outbird).
In the BILD interview, she talks about her passion for horror stories and the Addams Family, death, love – and her encounters with ghosts in her old farmhouse on the Joop family estate in Potsdam-Bornstedt…
Her father was her best teacher: As a child, Florentine Joop drew fashion designer Wolfgang Joop under her father’s desk
The fairytale book title seemed appropriate to the authors. Joop: “One becomes aware of one’s finiteness from a certain age.”
You yourself are not afraid of death. “Maybe also because I live across from a cemetery and am confronted with death every day. I can’t pretend I’m immortal. I don’t think it’s bad at all to get older,” says the mother of three (twins Helena and Friedrich, 12, daughter Rebecca, 5).
Florentine Joop and Holger Much have just published the book of fairy tales “And if we haven’t died…” (17.90 euros, Edition Outbird).
Florentine Joop celebrates her 50th birthday on May 10th. What does this number mean to you? “For me, 50 is the mountain festival,” she explains coolly. The author often forgets how old she is and still feels “very childlike”. And further: “I often have the feeling that I’m only 18.”
She has been married to the Kassel performance artist Sebastian Fleiter (52) since 2016. “The motto of our wedding was ‘A Night With The Addams Family,'” says Joop.
The artist is fascinated by the passionate love of Gomez and his wife Morticia Addams from the 60s cult series. “I also want to burn with passion. What is marriage these days? It’s a pretty old-fashioned attempt to institutionalize something that used to be meant to last a lifetime,” says Joop.
Florentine Joop has been happy with performance artist Sebastian Fleiter since 2014 and has been married since 2016
And further: “But in times when people only turned 35 years old. That was easy! Romantic love is an invention! Where real love starts, that has nothing to do with a white wedding…”
Rather? Joop: “Love is when someone wipes your slipped eyeliner off your aging face. That is my ideal of a relationship, that you are there for each other in moments like this.”
As a blended family, Florentine Joop lives with her husband and three children on the family estate in Bornstedt.
And like in a real fairy tale, the old farmhouse from 1889 is said to be haunted! No joke! Florentine Joop to BILD: “We have ghosts in our house! I’ve even had ghost encounters.”
She also writes about this in her book of fairy tales. And how did these encounters look like? “Ever since I got to the old house, I’ve believed in ghosts.”
Children’s book author Florentine Joop with her youngest daughter Rebecca (then 2, now 5)
Because when their now five-year-old daughter Rebecca was three years old, another ghostly event happened in their house. “One morning she was lying next to me in bed and still half asleep she said to me: ‘Mom, I’m hungry!’ I said: ‘Yes, but then we would have to get up!’ And then she said to me: ‘We can ask the old man in the corner!’ I asked: ‘Which man do you mean please?’ And she: ‘Well, the old man who sometimes gives me fries!’”
Had her daughter seen a ghost? Joop: “At first I thought that maybe she had dreamed it.” But suddenly the image of her great-grandfather Paule appeared in her head. He was known throughout Bornstedt for always slipping food to the children.
Joop: “My father Wolfgang’s grandfather always had food for the children with him – even if it was just potatoes or a carrot. It was spooky because he died in the very room where my daughter is now sleeping.”
Family painting by artist Florentine Joop: (from right to left) great-grandfather Paule Ebert and her great-grandmother Lina Ebert with Liesel and Ulla in front of their property in Potsdam-Bornstedt
But the spook wasn’t over yet. Joop continues: “Then I got up and suddenly all the light bulbs burst at the same time above me, and it vibrated below me. I just said: ‘Grandpa, I get it now!’”.
When the painter sits outside on her porch and talks about the old spirits, “the lamp above us” begins to flicker, she says. “That’s really true! I’m not crazy.”
Friends who have stayed at their place even reported that they “woke up after 3am every night.”
Florentine Joop lives with her husband and three children in the house where her father Wolfgang Joop was once born. The old garden house from 1889 on the family estate in Potsdam-Bornstedt is said to be haunted
Joop wouldn’t be surprised, she says: “My daughter Rebecca also often wakes up around 3.30 a.m. at night. The ‘Devil’s Hour’ started at 3:33 a.m. and has since become known through a streaming series.”
