Maxime Meiland already knows very well what it is like to be under fire, but now it is also her sister Montana’s turn. “You wouldn’t expect it, but what a retarded statement.”
All members of the Meiland family gather in the Chateau Meiland VIPS program to receive two other famous Dutch people every week. They then spend the night in their guest house and around it all kinds of deep conversations are held, occasionally interrupted by a scream from host Martien Meiland.
Retarded Montana
Private star journalist Jan Uriot watched the episode on Monday with Patty Brard and Debbie de Jong, known from the program B&B Vol Liefde. “It was another strange episode,” he says in the podcast Strictly Private. “I know it was all recorded in advance, but I said last time: back to the drawing board with that format.”
Jan really doesn’t like the look of it. “They are infantile games, stupid questions and retarded statements. That retarded statement came from Montana, for example. You wouldn’t expect that from her, because she is actually the brightest of the whole family, but what did she say?”
“Don’t know Debbie!”
Yeah, what kind of retarded thing did Montana say? The Chateau chopper continues: “Well, Debbie was there, Debbie de Jong from B&B Vol Liefde, and what does she say? ‘I don’t know the whole Debbie thing. I don’t know who that whole woman is, because I’ve never seen B&B Vol Liefde at all.’”
Colleague Jordi Versteegden: “Didn’t she read up on the program? That’s strange, isn’t it?”
Jan is not pleased with Jordi’s question. “Can I just finish my sentence? You shouldn’t keep interrupting.”
Strange statement
Back to Montana. What else did he say about Debbie and B&B Vol Liefde? “’I’ve never seen that,’ she says, ‘because I don’t like that kind of television.’ That’s what she says. I think that is a very strange statement, because the Meilandjes is a similar program, so what are you talking about? A very strange statement.”
The viewing figures of Chateau Meiland VIPS have collapsed: about 100,000 fewer people watched it. “That was somewhat expected. I think people have had enough of it. It’s all so transparent.”
Very thoughtful
It is also clear that the questions the Meilandjes ask their guests do not come from themselves, says Jan. “You can tell that the questions were devised by the editors. For example, Maxime, that loudmouth, says to Patty: ‘Gosh, how many men have you actually had in your life?’”
A very trite question, he thinks. “Well, the whole of the Netherlands knows that. Then I think: where does such a question come from? I think it’s all very thoughtful.”