The seventh season of Deutschland sucht den Superstar was aired on German channel RTL from 6 January to 17 April 2010. The season marked a new national record with more than 35,000 participants. The season's winner was Mehrzad Marashi.
The recall had 3 phases. The first phase was shot in a theater in Cologne. The 120 singers were split into 2 groups: Boys and Girls. Then every singer sang his favorite song. After that 55 singers were eliminated and the remaining singers sang in groups to get one of the 35 tickets for the next phase.
The second phase was shot in the Caribbean. The 35 singers sang three times: unaccompanied, in groups and in duos. The Top 25 came into the third phase.
The third and last phase was shot in the Schlosstheater Schwetzingen. The singers sang one song on their own. Then the jury decided which 15 singers came into the Top 15 live-show.
In this season, some of the contestants that had made it to the Top 15 had featured in previous seasons. Helmut Orosz made it to the Top 50 in season two but missing out on the Top 10 during the public vote. Menowin Fröhlich made it to the Top 20 shows in season 3 but was disqualified after being arrested and serving a two-year jail sentence. Kim Debkowski made it to the recall of the previous season but was eliminated after the group performance.
Advancing to Top 10 (Public votes): Thomas, Nelson, Menowin, Kim, Mehrzad, Helmut, Manuel
Advancing to Top 10 (Jury selection): Marcel, Ines, Steffi
In this season the Top 10 was supposed to be formed by the Top 7 of the viewers vote plus 3 candidates picked by the jury (from the remaining 8 contestants). As a tribute to the viewers' support and the great success of the season the jury denied to choose advancing candidates. Instead they sent the 8th, 9th and 10th of the public vote. That also explains the gender ratio of the Top 10.
Top 10 – "Die Megahits von heute" (Today's Megahits)
Bottom 3: Helmut Orosz, Manuel Hoffmann and Thomas Karaoglan
Eliminated: Manuel Hoffmann
On the following day, Helmut Orosz was disqualified from the competition after admitting to taking drugs during the competition. Just as done in season 4, the person who was eliminated the past week would be brought back into the competition; in which Manuel Hoffmann advanced to the top 5.
Top 5 – "Balladen & Ballermann" (Ballads & Ballermann)
Top 2: "I Gotta Feeling" by The Black Eyed Peas – performed by all Top 10 contestants (with the exception of Helmut Orosz) and "I Came for You" (performed by the two finalists) by The Disco Boys
On 13 February, it was supposed that the viewers would choose seven finalists and the judges three. The judges, or better said Dieter Bohlen, however chose to not decide and therefore the next three highest vote getters made it through to the finals automatically. They were Ines Redjeb, Marcel Pluschke and Steffi Landerer.
Helmut Orosz was expelled from the competition due to his drug abuse shown in a video. Therefore, Manuel Hoffmann, who was voted off the last in the competition, was brought back as the replacement.
