Former German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder will marry a South Korean translator 26 years his junior after his fourth marriage fell apart, he said on Thursday.

The 73-year-old former German leader – whose colourful private life and multiple marriages earned him the nickname “Audi man”, a reference to the German carmaker’s four-ring symbol – said that he would wed Kim So-Yeon this year.

“I’ve already met her family,” he told a press conference in Seoul where the smiling couple stood arm-in-arm in front of the cameras.

“The wedding will probably be held in the fall and the exact venue and timing will be decided later.”

Kim, 47, is a Seoul representative of the Economic Development Agency of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and has worked as a Korean translator for Schröder.

Their relationship emerged last September when Doris Schröder Kopf, Schröder’s fourth wife, said in the process of divorcing him that Kim had played a part in the breakup.

Schröder insisted Thursday that Kim had nothing to do with the breakup but said he would spend the rest of his life travelling back and forth between Germany and the South.

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