It doesn’t come at such a bad time for Charles Groenhuijsen that Op1 is stopping, because according to Evert Santegoeds he is really getting too old for that. “He’s almost falling asleep!”
Charles Groenhuijsen’s TV career seems to be over now that the talk show Op1 is ending. His boss Jan Slagter has no other work for him, so the presenter can finally retire in the summer. And of course it’s about time, because the presenter will already be turning 70 in the spring. He has therefore been receiving an AOW benefit for years.
Eyes open
Evert Santegoeds, the editor-in-chief of Privé, thinks that Charles is really getting a bit too old for it. “I think Charles Groenhuijsen can hardly keep his eyes open at that time in the evening, so I could also imagine that he has been freed from it,” he sneers in the podcast Strictly Private.
Wow, that’s mean. Is there perhaps a bit of old pain going on? Yes. “I was a bit sad about Charles Groenhuijsen. I said, ‘That man is 69.’ I don’t want to judge him for that, but I really think that his thoughts are not always there and I also don’t think he is the most collegial man in Hilversum.”
Not collegial
What is Evert so pissed off about? “Once, when we had a huge scoop with the magazine, we had unearthed Prince Bernhard’s will, and he spent an entire broadcast on it. Well, half of it anyway. That entire document was reviewed with some self-appointed royal expert and not once was the name Privé mentioned.”
He concludes: “I always thought that was so bad about Charles Groenhuijsen – and I never had the opportunity to tell him personally, but I did tell his boss – that he was so bad, so uncollegial. That you are actually reading half a broadcast from the Privé, without giving the people who worked hard on it the credit they deserve.”