Gerrit Hiemstra is typically someone that everyone in the Netherlands would like to hug. At least, that’s what Sophie Hilbrand says. “You haven’t aged a bit in those 25 years. Do you hear that often?”
After almost 25 years, it is over for Gerrit Hiemstra: he has resigned as weatherman for the NOS Journaal, because he has started a company with which he wants to combat climate change. He gave the big farewell interview to Sophie Hilbrand in the talk show last night Khalid & Sophie.
Cuddling with Gerrit
Sophie loves Gerrit. After a fragment of his last weather report, in which he received a hug from news reader Winfried Baijens, she comments: “Maybe I speak for myself, but you are kind of the weatherman that we would all like to hug.”
Gerrit then: “Well, be my guestI would say.”
Sophie laughing: “At the end, at the end.”
Gerrit: “Okay, let’s do that.”
A12 protests
It is no coincidence that Gerrit went to Sophie for his farewell interview, because she and her husband Waldemar Torenstra are also very concerned about the climate. When the A12 protests were discussed at her table last week, Hanneke Groenteman asked her: “I believe I have also seen your husband, haven’t I?”
Cozy side by side with Carice van Houten on the A12? “It wasn’t there at the time anyway,” says Sophie.
Hanneke: “Oh, maybe last time.”
Not a bit older
Anyway: Gerrit is a great person, says Sophie. “You haven’t aged a bit in those 25 years. Do you hear that often?”
Gerrit: “Yes, I hear that often, yes. When I also announced to the editors that I was going to stop… I said: ‘I want to do something different at the age of 62’, then there was a sigh: ‘Is he really 62?!’ That was actually a bigger surprise than me quitting.”
At the end of the broadcast, Sophie decides to give Gerrit a big hug.
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Gerrit in Khalid & Sophie: