John de Bever had actually expected that Freek Rikkerink, half of the duo Suzan & Freek, would actually die before last November. “That may sound very harsh.”
Last year, on May 27, it was a huge shock: Suzan & Freek announced that they would immediately stop as a musical duo when he was found to have metastatic lung cancer. A year has now passed and they are in the middle of a long series of concerts in the Gelredome and they have already promised their participation in the next The Voice.
“I couldn’t!”
Patty Brard regrets that she cannot attend those concerts. “Unfortunately I couldn’t make it, so I had to sell my tickets,” she says Show news.
Studio guest John de Bever thinks that’s cheap. “Don’t give it away, just sell it, right? You can just say: ‘Here’s my card!’”
Patty: “To strangers?! 300 euros! Be normal! With three people! 900 euros! I gave them a 75 euro discount. That’s nice, isn’t it?”
Dead for half a year
These are beautiful concerts, Patty understands. “I was very curious about how they would behave on stage and relate to each other, but when I saw all those images of them going through the air and who knows what else, I felt it was a great shame that I was not there.”
John thinks it’s all crazy. “But when I heard that he was ill, I thought he would be dead within six months. That may sound very harsh, but he had lung cancer, right?”
Very gloomy
Presenter Airen Mylene thought so too. “Yes, when that first message came out, I think all of us there with you thought that.”
Bart Ettekoven: “It also sounded very gloomy, but they started treatment quite quickly and it was successful.”
John: “I’m happy for that boy, not really, but…”
Bart: “Of course we all thought that this would be a very dark scenario.”
John concludes: “It’s great that they can still experience it.”