Never one to miss a chance to be ironic, David Hasselhoff is protesting plans to tear down the Berlin Wall, determined that the last symbolic remnants of communist oppression in Germany not be destroyed, and willing to come and be David Hasselhoff until his demands are met. Hasselhoff made that determination clear during a visit to Berlin yesterday, where he attended a press conference regarding real estate developers’ plans to knock down the largest-surviving piece of the Wall that once divided East and West Germany—and, perhaps more importantly, served as the stage for David Hasselhoff's historic 1989 performance of his hit single, “Looking For Freedom.”
There, at a “makeshift reggae club,” Hasselhoff compared tearing down the Wall and its mural-laden East Side Gallery to “tearing down an Indian burial ground,” noting that the site is “sacred” as a memorial to those whose lives were lost and were never able to see David Hasselhoff play there. According to The New Yorker, he also told a story about his “cute German tutor on the set of Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story” that illustrated the importance of David Hasselhoff to Germany and, by proxy, the place where David Hasselhoff once played. (The Berlin Wall.)
Echoing that epochal moment, Hasselhoff then delivered an a cappella rendition of “Looking For Freedom” that you can watch in the video below. Clearly galvanized by his performance, the Berlin Wall proudly continued to stand.