Albert Verlinde is reminded of perhaps the most hurtful joke ever made about him. “It may not have been very tasteful, but I was just a kid then.”
During his TV career, Albert Verlinde has always hated Robert Jensen. The former talk show host always called him ‘Kwalbert Verlinde’ and constantly mocked him. Once the presenter made a very hurtful joke about Albert, but now it turns out that he was only the messenger of it.
Albert is still alive
Robert’s joke was pretty spicy. “I have bad news about Albert Verlinde: he is still alive,” he sneered. It must have hit Albert incredibly hard that a TV colleague joked that he would rather see him dead than alive.
It has always bothered Albert that Robert never allowed himself to be held accountable. “I really think he is the most horrible man in all of Hilversum. I just think he’s a coward. Call everything and never meet people. You have to face people about whom you have said something.”
‘Tim is great’
Albert would much rather watch a creative TV maker like Tim den Besten, he revealed years ago. “I like him so much. That’s actually a guy who’s been called “that weirdo” all his life. He is very creative, you can’t always place that. Now with TV he comes into his own.”
Would Albert still feel the same way about that? The same Tim den Besten now confesses that he was behind that particularly intense joke by Robert Jensen.
‘Not tasteful’
Tim is now a big VPRO star, but he used to be active as a backstage lad. He has also worked for Robert Jensen in that capacity. “When I was 20 I was a copywriter for Jensen and I also made the ‘breaking news’ with funny videos, etc.,” he confesses on Instagram.
He continues: “I can actually only remember one joke I wrote: ‘I have bad news about Albert Verlinde: he is still alive’. Maybe not very tasteful but I was still a kid you know.”
Time of my life
Although Robert is a controversial content creator these days, Tim has no regrets about their past collaboration. “Had the time of my life there. And I also liked that I had two interns who were much older than me and had to assist me,” he says.
Robert was taken off the screen a few years before the corona pandemic due to low ratings. During the pandemic, the presenter started his online program in which he opposes the established order. In the most recent episode he conducts an hour and a half interview with Thierry Baudet.
