Albert Verlinde does not regret his statements about Erland Galjaard and Wendy van Dijk, the love couple who held sway at RTL for years. “I had to be tackled or something.”
It was one of Erland Galjaard’s last achievements as television boss of RTL: the disastrous move from RTL Boulevard to Leidseplein and the more or less dismissal of Albert Verlinde. The show expert has been worked out quite rigorously in the show section and the program has lost a lot of momentum as a result.
Not pleasant
Albert revealed in the summer that RTL was a kind of sect during the reign of Erland Galjaard and his wife Wendy van Dijk. Only if you sat at the kitchen table like Thijs Römer did you have a good perspective, but otherwise you could shake it. Albert’s revelation does not seem to have gone down well; Erland and Wendy silence him to death.
Yet Albert has no regrets, he now says The Friday Move. “It just wasn’t pleasant then. I have experienced many wonderful years at RTL, but those last years were just not fun. RTL was in crisis when I started, then Beau and I came up with Boulevard and The Voice. Suddenly it all became good again.”
To chop and to saw
It is clear that Albert wants to indicate how much he has meant to RTL. “I was there for fifteen years, fantastic years, but the last three years were not really fun, no. Because I always really wanted to have some kind of independence. I was paid quite a bit and I was also lucky to have the theater company.”
Apparently Erland and Wendy did not like that, Albert continues. “I think people thought: that man has everything and he just sits there. I had become too autonomous and that had to be addressed a bit. It had to be chopped and sawed. Then you just have to leave at some point.”
No receipt
Albert gives in the latest Weekend indicates that there is no beef with Erland and Wendy. “I worked with Erland afterwards and met Wendy, nothing happened. But there was simply not a pleasant atmosphere at RTL at that time. Everyone will agree, it has not been without reason that everything has changed.”
He concludes: “That wasn’t fun and you can say that, right? That’s not suspicion or anything. Many people no longer dare to put their emotions into words. (…) I think that causes a lot of misery, because people think: I won’t say anything. That stands in the way of a healthy discussion.”