Linda promised her story last week about all the vicissitudes surrounding The Voice of Holland and to do the break with her ex-partner Jeroen Rietbergen on her own platform LINDA. But after yesterday, the presenter no longer feels like it. “Having to tell and explain something that is so private because you are constantly under fire from a handful of sensationalist opinion makers (including Beau, Rob Goossens, Youp and the great leader of this bizarre smear campaign, that sad, intensely false Angela de Jong). Why in God’s name would I still do such an interview?” she wonders.
„If everything I say is dismissed by these ‘experts’ as ‘twisting, lying, covering up, exercising power, disguising’. If even the fact that I did not tell my brother the stories of two girls who confidentially told us their sad tale about Ali B, because that was the explicit wish of the victims, is interpreted as irresponsible or not credible.”
And no one says, ‘If Linda thought it was a good idea to put these girls in touch with Tim Hofman for a comprehensive investigation, it proves once again that she had no idea of her own husband’s misbehavior at The Voice.’ Of course I didn’t know that. And my brother spoke the full truth when he said he was aware of only one incident.”
Lie
According to the presenter, the lie is with someone else. “With someone who turns out to have a serious addiction. That is a characteristic of addiction, twisting the truth, but that has been destroyed enough by now, so to throw him in front of the bus even more seems unnecessary to me. And I don’t give the above types to, for example Boulevard or to twist and pant quotes from my story in their gossip newspaper and again take them out of context.”
Linda has therefore decided not to say anything more for the time being. “I will withdraw for the time being to finally get over the grief with my children, who have loved their bonus father dearly. And to let my family support me, because yes, we are there for each other. When I go back to work I will only do so with lovely people. And luckily there are a lot of them, judging by the immense box of mail I receive every day.”
Finally, she has another appeal to the victims. “Through LINDA. can you get in touch with me. I’d love to be able to tell you personally how sorry I am and that I would have done something about it had I known, but I didn’t know.”