Tilburg radio DJ Domien Verschuuren (38) baptized his own tulip on Wednesday. The Qmusic DJ, who has been active on the radio for twenty years this year, was allowed to pour a bottle of champagne over his ‘Tulipa Deejay Domien’ in the Keukenhof. He also received an official certificate.
“It really takes my breath away and that doesn’t happen often on the radio,” he said in a statement. “As a little boy I was crazy about everything to do with radio and twenty years later this still feels like the best thing there is.”
Verschuuren calls the naming of the tulip ‘bizarre’ and ‘honourable’. During his radio show he previously said that it was his dream to have his own tulip. “If I get my own tulip, I can almost die peacefully,” he joked at the time.
‘Ridiculous honor’
On Instagram he looks back on the moment the idea arose. “I shared my enthusiasm and immediately let it be known that I would love to have my own flower,” he writes on Instagram. “Just kidding, of course. Impossible too. Only greats like Guus Meeuwis and Wendy van Dijk have their own tulip, come on.”
An hour and a half later he received a call from Sandra Bechtholt, general manager of the Keukenhof. She was enthusiastic, but still needed a good reason to name a tulip. “I had that: twenty years on the radio.”
He baptized a tulip in the presence of friends and colleagues. “Bright red, like the Qmusic logo and like my passion for radio,” he continues. “I can be playfully blasé about this, but I just think this is really cool. What a ridiculous honor, I am very proud of it! Just like those twenty years ‘on the radio’.”
