It even made it to the NOS yesterday: Gerard Joling got into a fist fight during a performance with someone who had thrown a beer at him. Has he gone too far? “It’s not proportionate.”
The images of Gerard Joling fighting with a beer thrower (see below) are going viral. The folk singer performed on Friday evening during a party weekend in Boerhaar, where he was poured over a cup of beer. He then asked the perpetrator to come on stage. “What is the reason you do that?” he asks. Then: “Do you know what that feels like?”
Clap and kick
When Geer throws a drink back in the face of the beer thrower, the boy gives the singer a push. A number of blows follow and then Geer pulls the boy to the ground. “Security intervenes and removes the boy from the stage, while Joling delivers another punch and a kick,” reports the NOS.
Could this have consequences for Geer? “It could be possible, apart from the fact that I understand it, because I don’t like it if someone threw beer at me, but strictly speaking, formally and legally, this is a form of minor abuse that he applied to that boy,” says Bram Moszkowicz at the desk of Show news.
Self-defense
Celebrity expert Bart Ettekoven finds this striking. “That boy started. Isn’t that self-defense?”
Bram then: “Well, that has to be proportionate, but it wasn’t, right? I saw that he pulled that boy’s hair and that when that boy was overpowered by the security guards, he kicked him again. With all this I think: nothing will happen with that case, so I couldn’t imagine anything.”
Why? “Because it remains important that that boy did indeed start. Although he brought him on stage and that boy was the first to push, so I understand Joling, but if you ask me as a lawyer: ‘Could it have consequences?’, then it could amount to simple abuse.”
‘Think!’
Telegraaf reporter Jordi Versteegden thinks it is unprofessional of Gerard. “Where is that security? How is it possible that Gerard even has the space to deliver three more blows that he shouldn’t have dealt, right? Especially that last kick, I really think: Gerard, had to think for a moment!”
Bart: “It is not very wise of Gerard to invite that boy on stage, but in the heat of the moment he thought: I’m going to reprimand him publicly.”
Leader
When studio guest Bastiaan Ragas indicates that he could have done this too, Jordi says in surprise: “Would you kick him?”
Bastiaan: “Well, he kicks. It’s not that he’s a head kicker. He gives a kind of kick after him. If you get that thrown at you every weekend… At a certain point you just get tired of it. It might be better that those people in the audience think: I have to be careful, otherwise I’ll get kicked. It’s not good, but I understand it so well.”
Never kicked
Show news presenter Eva Vloon educates the viewer. “Of course, kicking is never the best solution.”
Bram to Bastiaan: “You also have a very long career, you have stood in front of thousands of people and you have experienced this too. But you have never kicked!”
Bastiaan: “No, but all kinds of things have happened that at a certain point you just get fed up with it. I understand.”
Aggressive
Show reporter Aran Bade is also critical. He agrees RTL Boulevard: “We know Gerard in many guises and in many ways, but never before, that he can be so aggressive. It is remarkable and thoughtless of Gerard. The slap on his face and the kick that now follows, it is said: is that necessary?”
He continues: “Gerard is incredibly popular in the Netherlands, everything slides off his back, but if these were the images of Lil Kleine, we would have looked at it very differently today. We have to look critically at what you do or do not do to each other. Ultimately, such a boy does not deserve this.”
Emergency weather excess
What does RTL Boulevard gown Clarice Stenger think? “You see an assault, you possibly see a self-defense. You don’t see what preceded it and the beer that Gerard got in the head, what it did to him, whether he was shocked.”
She concludes: “You can legally qualify it as abuse or perhaps even self-defence or self-defense excess. Yes, guys, that’s all possible, but should we withdraw it? This was just very irritating behavior from that boy from the audience.”
Fragment
The excerpt: