As a showbiz veteran, Bridget Maasland has enough experience to know that there is nothing spontaneous about Rob Kemps’ paparazzi photos. “Whether he also got paid?”
Leaving your family with young children for your background dancer and willingly posing with her for the lens of paparazzo Edwin Smulders: it is inevitable that Rob Kemps has the worst PR advisor in Hilversum. But did he actually get paid for that photo shoot?
Not spontaneously
Rob is big on the cover of Story this week. Thanks to Edwin, the magazine has a whole photo series of Rob and his new girlfriend Stephanie Klaver in the magazine pocket. Very nice for loose sales, but disastrous for Rob’s image. Everyone can see that the two are not exactly reluctant in those photos.
Story boss Guido den Aantrekker could therefore only confirm that Rob cooperated by not hiding from the paparazzo. And that is of course one understatement. “This was not secretly photographed. There is even a kiss with it,” says Bridget Maasland in the BLVD Podcast.
Rob paid?
Did Rob and Stephanie get paid for this? Bridget doesn’t think so. “This is with consent made, so to speak. They knew about this. But I don’t believe this is paid for. At least, I’ve been called more than once to ask if I really wanted to stage another photo, and that I always said: ‘You know who you’re talking to. I never do that.’”
She continues: “And I never do. And I certainly don’t get paid for it, but that’s not the case here. I really don’t believe that. I think more like: so, then we’re done. If you have the photos, you don’t have to lie in front of my door anymore. Then you just get rid of it.”
Beautiful pictures
Colleague Rob Goossens thinks that is indeed what happened. “Yes, and if you cooperate, then at least they will be beautiful photos and not ugly photos. And most celebrities are of course too vain to say: then ugly pictures, good luck with your magazine.”
Bridget: “Well, and I have often experienced when I said: ‘No, I’m not contributing to that’, that the stories are indeed not that nice and the photos are not that nice either. That’s right.”
No spine
Yvonne Coldeweijer, who brought Rob’s love exchange to light, thinks that as a celebrity you have no backbone if you work with such an Edwin Smulders. “Then when you have a bit of a backbone, you say: ‘Edwin, lucky you, lie down in the bushes. Yoohoo.’ Yes, bye, act normal for a while,” she says in her podcast The Juice Show.
She thinks it’s incredible. “You can’t pose and then stand on that bridge kissing like that, while you’ve just left your wife and children for a backup dancer? Yes, you can’t do that. That woman is very sad about that. (…) These are just narcissists.”
Story cover
Story cover: