Just after New Year’s Eve, Martijn Krabbé announced that he was terminally ill and has now given an extensive TV interview about it, just before New Year’s Eve. “It’s going to be a lot of money!”
At the beginning of the week, Humberto Tan traveled to the celebrity neighborhood of Amsterdam to visit the terminally ill Martijn Krabbé. He held a long interview there with his RTL colleague, which was broadcast on Tuesday in RTL Tonight. The program was entirely dedicated to this conversation; there were no other topics.
Tearjerker
There was no immediate reason for the TV conversation. Martijn’s health situation is still unchanged. He has signed a new one-year contract with RTL, so it is possible that the TV star will still be with us next Christmas. In that case, media journalist Mark Koster hopes that his ‘death struggle’ will not be ‘published’ by RTL until then.
Mark thought Humberto’s interview with Martijn was real too muchhe writes in his column The Telegraph. “The tearful Humberto Tan went very far in exploiting Martijn Krabbé’s suffering.”
Emo cologne
The massive pity for celebrities like Martijn causes Mark annoyance. He also points to Suzan & Freek. “The drama was unmissable, a thick smoke of emo cologne that drowned out all the other stories of suffering.”
In Martijn’s case, he thinks it is even worse. “It pales in comparison to the peddling of Martijn Krabbé’s illness,” he said. “His death throes are also being published by RTL as a multi-part drama series.”
Tearful moments
Humberto showed all the media moments about Martijn’s sad condition to the presenter again. “A tragic TV funeral that he himself attended. Tan showed the scene on an iPad.”
This really has to stop, the media columnist concludes. “We know Martijn Krabbé’s struggle. It would be nice not to exploit that further from now on.”
Uncomfortable
Rob Goossens, the TV critic of RTL Boulevard, also watched it with discomfort. “I felt like a terrible voyeur for an hour,” he writes RTL site.
“Humberto Tan was not supposed to be there and we as viewers were not supposed to be there. It was as if we had opened someone’s diary while he himself had gone to the toilet.”