Katja attended Friedrichsgymnasium, the same grammar school as the Brothers Grimm. As a way of surviving this Teutonic institution, her line between fantasy and reality soon began to blur. With dysfunction instilled from a young age, a career in entertainment naturally followed.

After a BSc in “Communication Studies” at London’s Brunel University and graduating from the British Film Institute’s MA program in 1995, she worked as a journalist specializing in film and popular culture, writing for Variety, Esquire, The Financial Times, The Independent on Sunday, Dazed & Confused, and German Vogue. Her articles ranged from interviews with movie stars and filmmakers to stories such as “I Was a Teenage Groupie – But My Daughter Thinks I’m All Right Now,” “Why Are The Germans So Kinky?,” “Hitler Stole My Birthday” and “Female Spectatorship or Does My Gun Look Big in This?”

With the entertainment business now thoroughly demystified, Katja fell hopelessly in love with, and married, German über-producer Bernd Eichinger. She worked on the Oscar-nominated The Baader Meinhof Complex with him and wrote the book to go with the film. Despite her refusal to write his memoir, her husband continued to tell her stories of his hell raising adventures in the screen trade. When Bernd tragically passed away, she decided to write these stories down in BE, her bestselling biography of (and love letter to) her late husband.

Eichinger continues to write essays and lectures on popular culture. For example, for a volume by the German Film Institute about the cigarette in movies she wrote “Cinema of Desire – How the Cigarette Tells Us What We Really Want.” Her article about Disneyland in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung inspired German artist Thomas Struth’s recent exhibition at Marian Goodman’s gallery in New York.

In 2012 she initiated and presented the Giorgio Moroder retrospective "The Sound of Munich" at the Munich Film Festival during which Moroder re-launched his DJing career at a party at the Bayerische Hof Hotel.

In 2014 Katja Eichinger published her first novel American Solo, which Süddeutsche Zeitung calls “an electrifying psycho-thriller about power, fear and the looming abyss.”

In 2015 she presented "Yes! Yes! Yes! Warholmania in Munich" alongside Glenn O'Brien, a cooperation between Museum Brandhorst and the Munich Film Festival. It was both a curated retrospective of Warhol's films as well as an exhibition of the Brandhorst's extensive Warhol collection.

In 2020 Eichinger published the bestselling volume of essays "Mode & andere Neurosen" (Fashion & Other Neuroses) following up with "Liebe & andere Neurosen" (Love & Other Neuroses) in 2022.

in 2023 "Asbest," a TV series created by Eichinger, broke audience records when it launched on ARD Mediathek and is now available on Netflix.

Her latest book "Das grosse Blau - Cote d'Azur" about the stories and characters populating the French Riviera launches on April 17 2024.

Eichinger is the chairwoman of the C/O Berlin advisory board. C/O Berlin is an exhibition space for photography and visual media and presents works by leading photographers as well as emerging talents. She set up the Bernd Eichinger archive at the Deutsche Kinemathek in Berlin and supports both the Bernd Eichinger Award as part of the German Film Awards, and the No Fear Award which is given to up-and-coming producers at the First Steps Awards in memory of her late husband.

Eichinger plays the piano and violin. She lives in Munich.