Albert Verlinde has finally admitted that he regrets his switch from Today Inside to RTL Tonight. And Johan Derksen also heard this. “He was really upset.”
We all knew it, of course, but now Albert Verlinde has also admitted it himself: he terribly regrets his switch from Today Inside to the horribly flopped RTL Tonight. “I felt more at home at VI than at this program. I felt at home at VI because I got the old Boulevard feeling there,” he says in De Telegraaf.
Albert flourished
Johan Derksen doesn’t read any news in that. “That is clear,” he responds Today Inside. “The man flourished here and then he goes to a table further away at RTL and then he can’t get out, so the atmosphere here was much better for Albert. He fit in there much better than the atmosphere there, if we can even speak of atmosphere.”
René van der Gijp: “Still, he liked the fact that it revolved around him, because they of course convinced him: ‘Listen, you will be the big man on that program, on RTL Tonight, and you will carry that program, and you will ensure that we have a great program right away.’ He thought: I’m going to do that!”
A bit annoyed
Why Albert left? Johan thinks that Albert was shot in the wick. “I think, René, that he was a bit annoyed. He was paid here per time and he thought it was a bit bad that he, the great Albert Verlinde, did not get a one-year contract. That bothered him a bit. And he did get that at RTL.”
Albert indeed expressed last year that he missed appreciation from John de Mol. “It’s not immediately the man who calls and says: ‘Gosh, the weather is bad, I’ll give you a call.’ He’s not. And you see that at RTL now, that Peter and Ellen do call. They send some more texts or call to see how things are going. Well, I think that’s great.”
Albert will be back at the table at VI next fall, he announced today. He will also appear in Renze Klamer’s show.