Angela de Jong unexpectedly sat down at the table yesterday with the biggest victim of her fire-breathing pen: Humberto Tan. Soon the AD dragon brought up his affair with Dionne Stax.
Unbelievable but true: four years after Humberto killer Angela de Jong wrote him off the TV with a series of ruthless columns, she was pontifically at his talk show table yesterday. Against will and thanks of course, because Humberto himself would never have invited her. However, as a replacement for Beau van Erven Dorens, he could not avoid it.
Angela vs Humberto
Angela has been a regular at Beau’s for months and that’s why she was invited to yesterday’s season finale. Unexpectedly, Beau had to return home on Thursday, because he had been diagnosed with corona. Humberto took over and so it happened that yesterday he sat at the table with his great critic Angela for an hour.
Humberto spoke with Angela about the emergence of juice channels and specifically about Yvonne Coldeweijer who got RTL Boulevard ‘on its knees’, as Angela calls it. Humberto then: “The question is whether it is ‘on its knees’, or whether Boulevard recognizes that there is a new development (…) and they see if they can work with it.”
ukases
Definitely on her knees, Angela thinks. She points out how juicy Boulevard is suddenly becoming, after years of keeping stars above their heads. “The showbiz sections – whether you like them or not – have had a reputation in recent years for being too much under the control of the broadcaster.”
She continues: “SBS has Shownieuws, RTL has RTL Boulevard. There were also certain okazes made that it was not allowed to talk about certain affairs. That caused them quite a bit of damage.”
With ‘certain affairs’ Angela naturally also refers to Humberto’s cheating with Dionne Stax. While that was hot news in almost all show media, Boulevard tried to keep it quiet for as long as possible. At the time, it caused Boulevard enormous image damage and all for nothing: Humberto’s talk show did not survive the affair.
“Your own affair!”
Jokkebrok Humberto now contradicts that Boulevard deliberately kept silent about it. “You know, Angela, I also worked, didn’t I, at Boulevard. A few years. I have to tell you honestly: I have not seen that and I can not imagine that that is being done from the leadership. The editorial team is independent. Your newspaper is also independent.”
Angela then brings up his controversial affair with Dionne. “True, but ummm… Your own affair that happened a few years ago…”
Humberto quickly: “No one called. I did not call, the station did not call.”
Nonsense
Nonsense, says Angela. “Erland Galjaard also called us about that affair and Luuk Ikink also admits that it was treated very reluctantly at the time. With understandable intentions, because it is a colleague. But as Aran Bade also told this table this week: trust comes on foot and goes on horseback.”
She continues: “That has really caused RTL Boulevard a considerable image problem, which has also created those juice channels. There was no longer a platform where people could get their news without it being checked 23 times first.”
Borsato case
Humberto then reveals that he thinks juice channels are careless. He states that John van den Heuvel, for example, did work meticulously in the Marco Borsato case. “The question is whether you think it is sensible that John van den Heuvel tries to be as careful as possible or do you say: no, that is outdated because the juice channels bring it faster.”
Angela: “Certainly not. See, these juice channels have a pretty big leeway. They can shout all kinds of things and if they are wrong once, no one will blame them. That is really different for a John van den Heuvel and RTL Boulevard; they have a reputation to lose.”
backstage
The fact is that the tide is turning at Boulevard, according to Angela. “I can’t remember seeing Aran Bade from RTL Boulevard even once on the sidewalk of a celebrity in recent years.”
The big question now is how things went backstage between Angela and Humberto. We’ll no doubt hear it back next week in Angela’s own media podcast.