Joost Prinsen no longer wanted to live after his cerebral infarction in October 2025. The presenter was semi-paralysed and could no longer speak properly. “He just didn’t want to do it anymore,” his partner Noraly Beyer reflected on Saturday in a candid conversation with journalist Coen Verbraak for the NPO 2 program Over Leven.
According to Beyer, Prinsen’s brain was still working, but the words were no longer coming out. “Then I thought, I knew: this is an end,” said the former newsreader. Prinsen then wanted to go to a hospice fairly quickly, but he could not go there because he was not dying. “He then became rebellious. He didn’t want it anymore, he just didn’t want it anymore. Which I completely understand, which I also respected, but it was difficult to accept that. I didn’t want to lose that man.”
Prinsen could not submit a euthanasia request, but the doctors were willing to help him with palliative sedation. “When they asked him one last time if he really wanted that, he said very loudly and clearly: ‘yes, yes, one hundred percent’. “I completely froze. I thought: this is really what you want. But there was no other way, it had to be done. He couldn’t have lived on like this, he didn’t want it and it wasn’t possible.” Prinsen eventually died on November 3, 2025.
The 79-year-old Beyer says that the clock was an opponent all the years she had a relationship with Prinsen. “I think I knew it wouldn’t last long, even though I wanted it to. That it could have lasted five years… I felt like: this is now, this is good, this is nice. How lucky we are to have this. And I’m not going to spoil that with future images of what if this or that.”
The former journalist is happy with the things she is currently allowed and able to do. She plans to celebrate her 80th birthday in July. “You must count your days, count your years, and count your blessings.”