An abrasive TV moment in the talk show Khalid & Sophie: when Mart Smeets extensively denies ever having seen abuses at the NOS, Jeroen Pauw forces him to respond to his own behavior.
There was quite a bit more than half a year ago dirt came out about abuses in the sports department of the NOS. Prominent figures Jack van Gelder and Tom Egbers in particular had to suffer, but former presenter Aïcha Marghadi also hit out at the alleged rude behavior of Mart Smeets.
Outstretched hand
Aïcha felt humiliated by Mart when she wanted to introduce herself to him, she said in the Volkskrant at the time. “After a broadcast, I walked up to him in a crowded editorial room. I reached out my hand and introduced myself. He stared at me and my hand, grabbed it, looked around at colleagues and said, ‘What should we do with this?’”
Mart’s denial, in the same newspaper, sounded unconvincing: “I had and have no idea that she worked at the NOS. I can hardly imagine that I let go of that text. Not for me, I like manners and violating them in that way… But I have lost many memories of the past.”
Mart in talk show
What bad luck for Mart: he was in last night Khalid & Sophie, on the day that the investigation into the abuses at NOS Sport was published. He says: “I haven’t experienced it, but I may have worked there too short a time. That could well be the case. The fact is that I wasn’t always there, but I didn’t notice anything.”
Sidekick Raoul Heertje: “If you didn’t notice anything, could it be that it is because you are one of those people who behaved wrongly?”
‘That is not possible’
No, Mart answers. “That’s not possible, because I’m not like that. That’s not in me. I asked one of the people I’m still friends with from Studio Sport, “Have you ever heard me scream?” And then she said, ‘If only you had done it.’”
Jeroen Pauw then decides to intervene. “Look, I find it a bit difficult. There was one story in the newspaper about a presenter who worked for a period at Studio Sport and she also mentions you in that story.”
Mart: “That’s right.”
Unsympathetic
Jeroen repeats Aïcha’s story. “To be honest, I thought what was said about you was quite unpleasant. She says: ‘He picks up that hand, he looks around and he says: boys, what are we supposed to do with this?’ I found that particularly unsympathetic.”
Mart: “I also found that extremely annoying to read and I couldn’t remember anything about it. In fact, I don’t remember her at all and I don’t think I was even there.”
‘Do not remember’
Sophie Hilbrand thinks that Mart is talking around it a bit. “But Mart, you’re actually saying: I wasn’t there for this whole incident?”
Then Mart repeats again that he has no active memories of this. “Not that I can remember. I’m old and I forget things, but I don’t do things like that. I was never in the newsroom in the morning.”
Fragment
The fragment in question: