Floortje Dessing is very shocked that Victor Vlam killed her so publicly. She denies having dumped her brother Johan Dessing. “I only have one brother.”
It is no secret that the family bond between Floortje Dessing and her brother Johan Dessing has been considerably disrupted, and that this is partly due to his position as a senator for Forum for Democracy. “Floortje said: ‘If you don’t distance yourself from that now, I will no longer know you as my brother.’ That put our bond on edge,” Johan said recently in Story.
Stupid narcissist
The infamous media critic Victor Vlam then delivered scathing comments. He really sawed off Floortje’s ankles and it has been bothering her terribly for a week. Poor Floortje has been called all kinds of things: a narcissist, an egoist, someone who makes stupid decisions. And what else? “No ability to put things into perspective!”
Floortje only dumped her brother because she is ashamed of his political position towards her BNNVARA friends and that makes her an egoistic narcissist, Victor shouted. But a week later he deeply regrets it. He received a letter from the presenter, he says in his podcast The Communicados.
What does Floortje say?
What does Floortje have to say? “Hey Victor, I don’t know whether you appreciate it when someone you have made statements about explains his side of the story, but I always like it myself, hence this email. I would like to immediately say: the fact that my brother told his story in Story is entirely his right.”
Johan also did that ‘with the right intentions’, Floortje thinks. “The elections were coming and that is why extra attention was paid to him and his party. He seized that opportunity with both hands. The only problem is that in the piece the nuance always disappears somewhat.”
Not so black and white
Johan was not out to bash her, Floortje knows. “It is of course always a bit more emotional in a gossip magazine than what has been said by him and I am sure of that. I am also sending you this email to indicate that things are not as black and white as you say. I did not ban my brother just because he is an enthusiastic supporter of FvD.”
There is much more behind it, says Floortje. “There are complicated family structures in so many families, you may recognize that yourself, and so it is with us, it has been going on for years.”
Baudet’s points
That political position does make it difficult, Floortje admits. “My brother and I are two completely different people and have been able to function in that way for years, each with his own opinion, but with respect for each other. The point that I now have a lot of difficulty with is the fact that Thierry Baudet and his party are now taking such extreme positions.”
For example, she points to themes such as Russia and immigration. “Although my brother has a more nuanced view about this, he is still affiliated with the party that legitimizes this and I personally have a lot of difficulty with that. These are things that keep tripping us up and that cause us to distance ourselves, but that doesn’t mean that I have completely turned away from him.”
‘Remains my brother’
Floortje did not dump Johan, she emphasizes. “He is and remains my brother and I only have one. There has only been a silence between us, a distance and that saddens me a lot.”
She concludes: “The fact that it is now also being taken up by people who do not know us is very understandable given our public role and I should certainly not complain about that – then I should have looked for another profession – but it is very difficult, also for my parents, who love us all equally.”
Victor says sorry
Victor is disappointed with his statements. “I think it is a very reasonable story and afterwards I thought: she is simply right, I was simply wrong here. I also have a lot of respect for the fact that she does it in such a reasonable way. I imagine she got very angry. I have apologized to Floortje.”
He concludes: “I just don’t think it’s my job to pry into all kinds of family relationships. I can imagine that parents don’t like reading things like that at all, so I feel like: I kind of regret this subject and shouldn’t have approached it that way.”