Henry van Loon notices that his star status has increased to such an extent that he can currently hardly walk through the Efteling normally. “I have to wear a cap and sunglasses.”
Life is becoming increasingly unbearable for Henry van Loon as he becomes an increasingly famous Dutchman. People are chasing him everywhere on the street and because of that he can no longer do the things that normal people do. It sometimes breaks him down; He can no longer even walk normally through De Efteling.
Not to Efteling
Henry is recognized terribly often, he says in the LINDA. “Yes. They are used to something in Amsterdam, but when I go to Efteling, I put on a cap and sunglasses. That’s okay, it’s part of it, but I didn’t necessarily want to be famous. I wanted to make people laugh.”
He continues: “And if you are successful with that, you will appear on TV and become one. Ten years ago I found it really annoying when people wanted to take a picture with me, but now I just see it as a compliment. Although I often dance abroad, just because I can. Woohoo, no Dutch.”
Nasty reactions
It makes a difference that people are nice to him, says Henry. He doesn’t get many nasty reactions. “No, certainly not when you compare it with colleagues of color. Soundos el Ahmadi, for example, receives hate and shit every day. Really terrible. I have nothing to complain about in that regard.”
Henry also takes it all with a grain of salt. “When I was still on Twitter, I once wrote someone back. He had been to my show and wrote that it was shit. Not a bad thing at all, very bad and I was actually ugly too.”
‘What the f*ck?!’
And then? “I wrote back that I thought it was a shame, that I actually thought it went very well. He then replied that he was sorry, that he had not expected me to read it. I mean: what the f*ck?”
Finally, is Henry proud of himself? To his enormous success? “Yes, very, but above all I am grateful. That sounds very Instagram – blessed – but what I mean by that is that I think life is mainly about acceptance and love.”