In the Christmas special of Boerderij van Dorst, Sophie Hilbrand lashes out at her critics Johan Derksen and Tina Nijkamp. She thinks we are dealing with bullies here. “Really retarded.”
Fallen talk show star Sophie Hilbrand chooses a special moment to take revenge on her critics: Christmas. She went on the Christmas special last night Dorst Farm quite loosely, especially Johan Derksen and Tina Nijkamp, but Tina’s podcast buddy Mark Koster also had his turn. These are all bullies, she thinks.
Sophie Kaag
When Sophie is asked in the program about her tough year, she begins: “You are of course referring to Bar Laat, that it stopped and that there was all kinds of criticism about it, I think, right? That you mean that a bit? Because it was simply destroyed very often in VI.”
Was she destroyed? “Yes, yes… Yes… As a kind of Kaag, whatever is wrong with Kaag, put away, or: ‘Left-wing activist!’ You name it all. What I actually found most difficult about it – because I’m really quite a bit teflon about: well, just chat and we’ll continue the next day – is that it was a lot.”
Football clubs
It also made Sophie shy of people. “I just noticed: I really liked coming to football clubs, because my children play football, and then for the first time – and I never have, I’m never aware that anyone knows me from TV, I actually just kind of forget that – I thought: what are these people thinking?”
“Because I am constantly being framed in that program as something that you may really hate. I felt watched. Anyway, then you go into the country, and nothing, no one, nowhere is concerned with that.”
Media reality
If VI bashes you, it doesn’t necessarily mean life is changing, according to Sophie. “It is also very much a media reality of the media about the media, because there were plenty of people I met who said to me: ‘Are you still doing something on television?’”
Perhaps even worse, she thought, was the podcast De Mediaweek. “What I found very intense at one point was that there was a podcast by Tina Nijkamp, she is called the ratings queen, and Mark Koster, a Telegraaf journalist. They talked about it in a podcast and then said: ‘We bullied her away, didn’t we?’”
‘Really retarded’
That statement was indeed made by Mark Koster. It’s reprehensible, Sophie thinks. “Then I thought: wow, these are just two grown-up people, who I think have children, and then at that age they start talking about bullying. I just think that’s retarded. Isn’t that idiotic?”
“They say bullied away, but the program had to change and the intention was for it to become much more political, current and newsier, and I don’t fit in with that. My preference is very much for normal people. I think the position of talk show host is great, but the way that program should come out is much less so.”
Tina responds
Tina disagrees. “Nonsense. I said that I thought Sophie came across as too pedantic for a neutral talk show and too activist. And that that doesn’t help the viewing figures,” she responds to her analysis channel.
She concludes: “I still stand by that. Pauw & De Wit is much more neutral than Bar Laat.”