Marc-Marie Huijbregts reacts to the rumors about the ‘monstrous’ and ‘tyrannical’ behavior that Matthijs van Nieuwkerk would have displayed for years behind the scenes of DWDD.
Matthijs van Nieuwkerk is said to have misbehaved as the presenter of his talk show De Wereld Draait Door. According to a source of De Telegraaf, he showed ‘monstrous behaviour’. BNNVARA was recently forced to respond to the rumors. A number of TV experts, including Angela de Jong, jumped in the gap for Matthijs.
“It drove you crazy too!”
How does Marc-Marie Huijbregts view the issue? He was Matthijs’s table lord for many years. “About that Matthijs would be such an evil genius and all that… Of course I walked around there and stuff, for fifteen years, and first of all I thought it wasn’t too bad. I didn’t mind that at all.”
He continues in his podcast Marc-Marie & Aaf Find Something: “Yes, he could now and then say what he thought of something and he could now and then say: ‘I don’t want this!’, but it was never about ego with Matthijs. With Matthijs, it was always about the best possible program and sometimes some people from the editorial team drove you crazy.”
Intuition of Matthijs
What kind of editors? “People who kept saying: ‘No, it’s going to be a nice conversation’, and then we sat at the table and it wasn’t a nice conversation at all! He has also become wise through trial and error. He thought: I have to follow my intuition and if I think it’s not going to work, then it just won’t work.”
“And then some people kept on holding on…”, he continues. “No, I thought it was all okay.”
Learned much
Co-host Aaf Brandt Corstius counters: “But you weren’t there as an editor, were you. It’s very different when you’re a guest. Then you have a much nicer role.”
Marc-Marie: “Absolutely true, but I also experienced that people from the editors found it all very difficult, but they did learn a lot at De Wereld Draait Door. They have also learned that sometimes you just have to make unpleasant choices and that you sometimes have to cancel people who you thought is gold.”
“And in the end it was Matthijs who always had to make up for it at the table, you know.”
“Renze can’t do it!”
For example, if you now look at a Renze Klamer, you see that it is good that Matthijs always wanted to get the most out of his ability, Marc-Marie thinks. He mainly refers to the interview Renze had with Maxim Hartman last week. “Then I thought: Matthijs had done that very well and Renze just can’t do that.”
He continues: “Actually, Renze only had one question for Maxim: ‘Don’t you find it annoying that you say things about other people?’ He was going to ask the same question for fifteen minutes! (…) You just have to have quality for that. †
“You’ll get over it”
Perfectionism is good, says Marc-Marie. “I think that sometimes – especially when it’s live and just before a broadcast for example – you can get angry at someone. Nobody likes sugar and I often hear stories like: ‘Yes, then I was intimidated!’, and so on. That just happens sometimes in work situations.”
“Sometimes I was there and then I thought: gosh, this is just as clumsy and just as annoying and a bit annoying, but you’ll get over that too.”