Is there a doctor in the room? Albert Verlinde is about to recover. One critical comment from a trainee and our national show king is battered in the guardrail. “Yes, I really went all out out.”
Of course there is quite a bit of pressure on television stars and celebrities in general. Take the men of Today Inside: every evening it is said somewhere on social media that the program is ‘deteriorating a bit’. An expectation has to be fulfilled every evening and of course that can give an oppressive feeling.
Albert’s heyday
Albert Verlinde also had a lot of trouble with this in his time at RTL Boulevard, he confesses in the VI section In The Hallways. The enormous success of the show section surprised him somewhat. “I thought it was pretty intense, because I wasn’t expecting it. I was going to do Boulevard and everyone thought: that will get 600,000 viewers.”
It became 1.2 to 1.3 million a day, Albert continues. “And just as controversial as this (VI, ed.). It was completely new to me, so it came to me. It was quite busy.”
Bit mild
Johan also mentioned this in Monday VI. Albert: “That people say: ‘It suddenly becomes a bit mild.’ At some point there will be a kind of bar and that’s why I think it’s so good that Johan said at the beginning of the show: ‘People act like everything is going to happen.’ If you let yourself be driven by that expectation, you will go crazy.”
Wilfred Genee: “Did you ever let yourself be rushed during that period?”
Albert: “Yes, because you think: I have to say something now, something has to happen now or I have to do something.”
Devil intern
It once led to a tragic low point. “One time I completely flipped out. Then I had a broadcast and there was an intern, a very sweet boy or girl, who said: ‘Yeah, it wasn’t as ehhh exciting as the other broadcasts.’ And then I thought: oh, you don’t know what I’m going through, what I’m getting at me.”
And then? “Then I actually collapsed completely. Then I was home for a week and was completely out for a while. Because you suddenly realize: everyone is talking about me and you think: well, it wasn’t like that one night. That came in a bit. The pressure you feel is underestimated.”
Was the intern ever spotted at the Mediapark after that evening? No one who knows.