Albert Verlinde doesn’t care what twitterers and media have to say about him. He only listens to the opinion of two people; one of them is his naughty husband Onno Hoes.
Many celebrities say that they don’t care about social media and only listen to people in their close circles. Albert Verlinde is also one of them. “I once learned from actress Mary Michon: ‘In a studio like that you think everyone is talking about you. So you have to decide for yourself: I only listen to two people,” he says in the AD†
Albert boycott Twitter
Albert turns his nose up at what Twitterers think of him. “Yes. Social media: I ignore them. If we are not all careful, those will become the new limiters of our freedom of expression. All those voices, opinions: I can’t do anything with them.”
It used to be different, Albert admits. “In the beginning, when Twitter and Facebook were new, I read everything. And then I thought: if I do this, or this or that, they’re going to like me. I tried my best like a dog. But it is never good.”
Humberto riot
Who does Albert listen to, for example in the recent riot surrounding his bizarre statements about Humberto Tan? “Onno or my editor-in-chief, the two people I listen to, didn’t have to point this out to me. I also realized that I had gone too far.”
Is it true that despite the 2014 toyboy riot, Albert is still in bed with Onno, the deputy party chairman of the VVD, who plays a kind of overage Arie Boomsma on Instagram in his spare time? “We have said to each other, and to the press: I’m not going to say anything more about it.”