The row about Özcan Akyol’s credibility explodes now that Jan Slagter, one of his employers, publicly drops him. “Eus pretended that that video was very serious!”
It is inevitable that Özcan Akyol will go to his regular Monday lunch at Today Inside with a heavy heart, because the row about his credibility has completely exploded now that his employer Jan Slagter has lost his confidence in him. If the VI men don’t really put him on the rack now, Eus will drag them into the abyss.
Knife in back
The riot in a nutshell? Eus really stirred up all the show media by repeatedly shouting on television that a video of Matthijs van Nieuwkerk’s misconduct would be circulating, but that howler video turned out to be an innocent fragment from a DWDD documentary and now he blames the media for the resulting commotion. And Matthijs? He walks around with a knife in his back.
Shortly after Özcan, Jan Slagter also suddenly spoke out against Matthijs: “I do believe that in the end there was more going on than I was told and that doesn’t feel good, let me put it that way. To the question: ‘Did you use physical violence?’, Matthijs actually replied: ‘No, Jan, only nose to nose.’ Well, it turns out that more has happened.”
Jan is furious
Wow, if even Ján shouts that someone has gone too far, then half a murder must have been committed. Jan and Eus’ statements last month damaged Matthijs’ already damaged image even further. But what happens now? Jan is back in the Matthijs camp, he said last night in the talk show Renze on Sunday.
Jan now distances himself from Özcan, who presents the TV hit Sterren op het Doek for his broadcaster. “I will be open about things. At one point I received a call from Eus and he said: ‘Jan, things are very different. I saw a video and it’s really horrible. I spoke to Suzanne Kunzeler’, etcetera.”
Upset
Eus’s call seriously worried Jan. “I was on holiday at the time and I was really upset for a few days that I thought: hey, what happened here? I have heard other things and now Eus is telling me this. That actually kept me awake a bit. Until I found out this was all based on hearsay.”
“And that video turned out to be… I saw the video and Eus then made it seem to me as if it was a very serious video… Well, you have all seen the video too, well, that doesn’t scare me to be honest. There had just been that attack in Paris, that was that broadcast, so it was all very tense.”
Wrong am
Jan feels misled by Eus. “I was really misled by him. I still have contact with Matthijs and I told him that very honestly. I have the feeling that this is because of BNNVARA and Suzanne Kunzeler, who spoke to Eus and probably also put pressure on him.”
What does Jan say Suzanne said to Eus? “Well, I think: ‘I would rather not have you standing behind Matthijs all this time.’ To be honest, I think he has chosen his career, because he is of course at BNNVARA and a columnist and he presents.”
Fanfare
Why does BNNVARA boss Suzanne actually target Matthijs so much? After all, he no longer has anything to do with the broadcaster and, moreover, they very firmly accuse him of things that have not been proven. “That’s to distract things.”
All in all, Jan has defected from team Eus to team Matthijs again. “Yes, I’m back where I was. Everything that was said then turned out to be a lot of fanfare in my opinion. That video was a fanfare, the people he had spoken to… And again: it’s about puppets, puppets, puppets, but it’s about the big story: a safe working environment.”
Why?
The big question is: why has Özcan spread rumors everywhere about an intense howling video of Matthijs, while that video clearly does not contain any transgressive behavior? Was he indeed put under pressure by his boss Suzanne Kunzeler or other colleagues at the broadcaster?
Or is there something else going on that we as outsiders are not aware of? Is there a personal conflict or grudge? One thing is certain: after these statements by Jan, Eus can no longer hide behind the fact that it is the media that has blown up the gossip about that howler video. All eyes are on Wilfred tonight…