Matthijs van Nieuwkerk has unexpectedly withdrawn from a collaboration with Michel van Egmond, who became a millionaire thanks to the book about René van der Gijp. “No biography.”
A considerable unveiling by Michel van Egmond: the Gijp millionaire worked together with his beloved Antoinnette Scheulderman on a biography about the troubled Matthijs van Nieuwkerk. It is not surprising that the fallen DWDD star chose this duo, because they have already proven themselves when it comes to biographies about famous Dutch people.
‘Always Geboft’
It has become Michel’s specialty. “Of course I always gave up with my main characters. Whether it was René van der Gijp, with whom it all started, or Wim Kieft or Johan Derksen: I have always gained maximum cooperation and full confidence from everyone,” he says in it today Ad.
Matthijs would be the next big biography. “My partner Antoynette Scheulderman and I would write his biography. I had talked to him about it years ago, by the way. Then the plan was bleeding, but now there was of course a clear reason to resume it again.”
Angry with Matthijs
The writers duo Michel and Antoynette officially started last summer. “Interviewing, researching, writing. We had made good agreements, but after a few months the project still spoke.”
What happened? “What it comes down to: Matthijs wanted to stop the project for an indefinite period of time, despite our agreements, I became angry, Antoinnette too, he apologized, which adorned him, but with us the confidence was gone. So no book.”
“I am disappointed”
Is Michel even angry now? “No dude. But I am still disappointed. We really believed in that book. So I now see it primarily as a missed opportunity. Not only for us, but also for him. Look, I don’t believe he is the monster for which he is being held in some circles and, as far as is known, he has indeed killed nobody.”
But he was “certainly not a saint,” he concludes. “The number of editors with complaints about the course of events at DWDD are just too much to not take them seriously. So the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. And where exactly, we would have liked to unravel that in a candid and honest book, but that didn’t come.”