Luuk Ikink does not rule out that Jan Smit resigned from the Eurovision Song Contest because of a handshake. He raises the rumor that Mia & Dion’s entry was already finalized before the selection procedure.
Six months ago, RTL Boulevard caused intense speculation about Mia & Dion’s entry to the Eurovision Song Contest. The official selection procedure, for which countless artists and songwriters struggled for months, started on May 16 last year. But two days later, on May 18, something very strange happened.
Hand clap?
On that day, Mia Nicolai wrote on her Instagram page: “I’m telling you: in six months a new project that I love will come out to the world. It’s going to blow things up.”
Six months later, at the beginning of November, it became clear that Mia is going to the Eurovision Song Contest with Dion Cooper. Then she wrote, “Remember when I said something big was coming in November? Well, it’s there. Eurovision Song Contest 2023, we’re coming.”
The organizing broadcaster AvroTros came up with a bizarrely weak excuse. It would have been ‘her humour’. Humor or just a handshake between their mentor Duncan Laurence and the selection committee of the Eurovision Song Contest?
Luke wakes up
Now that it was inadvertently leaked yesterday that Jan Smit suddenly decided in November to leave the selection committee after ten years – according to the AD after he was the only one against Mia & Dion’s entry – Luuk rakes up the curious selection process. “Something crazy has been going on with this song for a while,” he says in the RTL Boulevard From yesterday.
Luuk then explains the entire timeline again (‘because this could well be a theory’). Then: “Could it be that all this has already been cooked up and that Jan found out about it and he thought: I just don’t feel like it, I don’t want this this way?”
In other words: did Jan leave because of a handshake at the Eurovision Song Contest?
plausible theory
Reporter Aran Bade does not rule it out. “Yes, I think that’s a very plausible theory. It very much seems that it has been a handshake, with Duncan Laurence, open doors, and that the committee has opted for that. And that Jan then said: ‘We are not going for that.’ All the more so because there are other songs.”
Shortly after RTL Boulevard, Jan made a statement on Instagram last night: “I normally never respond. Now let me hear from you. I already informed AvroTros in November 2022 that I am leaving the selection committee after 10 years. The reason was that I thought it was time for fresh blood and new insights.”
Indian stories
Jan opposes the stories that are now circulating, but does not make it concrete. “There are now all kinds of Indian stories that are not correct. Naturally, I wish Mia & Dion every success in Liverpool!”
Story boss Guido den Aantractor puts in there Show news questions: “The AD does good journalism, so they will undoubtedly have asked him for a response and he therefore did not want to respond. I think it’s a bit silly to suddenly do this again. I think there are more interests at play. His connection to AvroTros maybe.”