Nathalie T., the mother of Marco Borsato’s complainant and the former chairman of his fan club, was bashed on TV last night. “Kierewiet,” shouts Wierd Duk. And Gijp: “Crazy woman!”
A striking twist in the Marco Borsato case: yesterday, on the first day of the hearing, it was more about the complainant’s mother, Nathalie T., than about the fallen singer himself. The woman who claims that she was abused by Marco as a 15-year-old – he allegedly fondled her legs and breasts, among other things – comes from a rather unusual family.
Morally reprehensible
According to Marco, Nathalie has ‘transgressive’ written on her forehead. The examples he gives about her motherhood are quite remarkable: from hanging naked with her daughter while Marco watches to flashing breasts. Or, as lawyer Veerle Hammerstein puts it Eva calls: “A rather morally reprehensible family.”
Table guest Özcan Akyol says at the same table: “There was one description that had everything in it for me, namely that at a certain point the daughter had problems. I think the relationship had broken down and Marco had to come and comfort him. The mother had asked that and she then says to Marco: ‘She is naked in bed upstairs’, and she then winks.”
“Why are you doing that?”
Özcan thinks this is strange behavior for a parent. “Then I think: why do you do that as a mother? Why do you send an adult man to your daughter? I find that very strange. As an adult man you might also think: that is such a red flag, I am not going upstairs.”
Tooske Ragas also finds the mother of the alleged victim special, she says Show news. “I noticed that during the day I went from camp to camp. First the charges were read out and I thought: that doesn’t sound good, gosh. Then Marco started talking to the chairman and then I often thought: yes, gee, that sounds good…”
Pretty crazy
There is something fishy about it, says colleague Bart Ettekoven. “The fact that when he leaves that six women show their breasts in front of the window, that the girl occasionally walked through the house naked and when she came in said to a living room full of friends: ‘We are going to have sex upstairs!’, these are situations that an average family would not expect.”
What does Wierd Duk call this? De Telegraaf journalist News of the Day: “It was a crazy band, I think you can safely say, with a mother who — dare I say it as an opinion maker? — seems quite crazy, but whatever.”
Incitement
It seems as if that mother wanted to direct something, says Wierd. “When a mother says: ‘Go upstairs for a moment, but she is naked!’, it seems like a kind of invitation to me. I don’t know what that’s called, but it doesn’t seem very fresh to me.”
Bram Moszkowicz: “You mean the criminal word ‘incitement’?”
Wierd: “Well, maybe, yes. (…) I think it mainly says that someone with a weak character has allowed himself to be completely dragged into a completely messed up family dynamic.”
Crazy woman
René van der Gijp agrees. “No, but you know… It was a strange thing that he got into,” he says Today Inside.
He continues: “You have friends, you know, and you talk about things like that with them, like: ‘Gosh, that crazy woman around me, then she’s standing naked again with her daughter and all that.’ Then you might also have friends who say, “You know what? Stop it for once, okay? What do you do with it?’”
Oversexed family
Wilfred Genee would also have advised that. “Yes, like: ‘I wouldn’t go there again!’”
Colleague Johan Derksen: “It was an oversexed family.”
René: “You shouldn’t dive in completely.”
Johan finds that mother very strange: “I have daughters, but I have never secretly filmed a phone call when one of my daughters is in bed with a guy. That’s a bit sick, isn’t it?”
‘Get out of here immediately!’
Albert Verlinde believes that Marco should have left immediately when he saw the craziness in that family. “I thought the shock of the day was actually the environment in which he found himself as a major Dutch star. You have to think from the very first second: I shouldn’t be here! I have to distance myself from this!”, he says in RTL Tonight.
He continues: “What I find unimaginable: you are a world star in the Netherlands, you come home and very strange situations take place there. Friends come and show their breasts, a very strange atmosphere. (…) Mother almost seems to have pushed this child forward.”
“It’s not the point!”
Crime journalist John van den Heuvel, who explained to the victim how to report it and is anti-Borsato, says in RTL Boulevard about the role of the mother: “It is of course not the case that the mother can be held responsible for Marco Borsato’s behavior.”
Colleague Clarice Stenger: “Yes, but she has of course exposed her child to quite a bit. The idea that you and your child are going to have a Boudoir-like photo shoot in lingerie with Marco as photographer, then you as a mother are also… That will be difficult, I think.”
‘Not on trial!’
John, who is not objective in this matter, is quite fierce about it. He doesn’t think it’s a problem. “But the mother is not on trial, he is on trial and I don’t think the mother is the victim either!”
Clarice concludes, according to many, rightly: “A lot is said about her and if that is true, then I find what that mother did quite reprehensible.”