Eva Jinek does not know whether Johnny de Mol should have continued with his talk show HLF8 at RTL, despite being accused of assault and attempted manslaughter. “I do not know.”
Most celebrities are put on hold by their employers for a while if there is a very serious allegation hanging from his or her pants, but in the case of Johnny de Mol, everything is different. Although he is accused of aggravated assault and attempted murder by his ex-fiancée Shima Kaes, there is one big difference: his father is John de Mol.
PR stunt
Although Johnny has carte blanche on SBS 6 with his talk show HLF8, it is becoming increasingly difficult for him to stay on TV. “The storm surrounding Johnny de Mol in the alleged assault case has only flared up further,” said Eva Jinek last night in her program on RTL 4. “Can he continue to present his talk show HLF8?”
For now, it seems. Dinner guest Özcan Akyol thinks Johnny will continue because disappearing from the TV may seem like an admission of guilt, but Eva disagrees.
‘It colors everything’
Eva thinks that Johnny can also step back because working is made difficult for him in this way. “Um, you can think like that,” she says to Özcan.
She continues: “You could also think: he has to keep talking about it, we keep talking about it. Then it de facto colors everything you do in that program, because it’s about it all the time. You don’t necessarily have to say, ‘I’m guilty’, do you? You can say, ‘It’s talked about all the time and it’s not easy for me to work like this.’”
Equally bad
Özcan does not rule out that Johnny will have to stop at some point. “There may be an editorial consideration as to whether people still want to come, etcetera. But if he feels he can make the program and the people are still coming and the numbers are still as bad as before, why not just keep going?”
Would Johnny have been allowed to continue in America? Correspondent Michiel Vos: “That’s a good question. I don’t know right now. I think the network looks purely at commercial interest and intervenes very quickly and says: ‘Listen, just don’t, because this is dangerous for commercial revenues, etc.’ Of course it is very businesslike.”
Also at RTL?
Angela de Jong wonders whether Johnny could have continued with his talk show if he had worked for RTL, without a father at the top. “Would he have received a talk show at RTL with this above his head six months ago?”
Eva dubious: “I don’t know.”
Angela: “I wonder, I don’t think so.”
Eva also touched on Johnny’s request for prosecution, which critics have called a PR ploy. “Yes, that makes no sense, because that was the plan anyway. I didn’t quite understand that. I think it was a PR stunt,” responds Özcan.
And Angela: “That too. It’s the ultimate ‘I didn’t do it’, of course, when you say that.”
high five
Eva also broadcast the footage of Johnny high-fiveting second chances with Bilal Wahib on Wednesday night. “You had trouble with this.”
Angela then: “Yes. Bilal then kind of hangs back and it becomes a very giggly conversation, where they eventually laugh at second chances they should get and high-five at everything and: ‘Oh, we’re here as experience and image experts!’ It was very inconvenient… I didn’t find it very useful.”
By the way, you can’t blame Bilal too much, Özcan noted: “That kid has special education, so he’s not very intelligent.”
