Royce de Vries received a serious spanking last night in De Oranjewinter, especially from presenter Hélène Hendriks. “Shouldn’t he have fired Khalid Kasem?”
What a surprise: Royce de Vries, the son of the late Peter R. de Vries, the darling of RTL Boulevard, turns out to be a kind of walking cover-up, according to the AD. Officemate Khalid Kasem misbehaving? Quickly covered up! Hey, that’s not in his recently released book, critics note.
Moral compass
Hélène Hendriks mentions it in her talk show The Orange Winter and doesn’t seem particularly favorable to Royce. “I actually find it interesting to know what you think about the role of Peter R. de Vries and Royce in this. What is their moral compass, do you think, Jan?”
MAX boss Jan Slagter defends the De Vriesjes: “Well, I think what people are now saying about Peter R. de Vries, among others, that he has fallen from his pedestal… I think that is absolute nonsense. This man was murdered and really meant a lot to a lot of people. He solved a lot of cases.”
Fire Khalid
Peter does indeed have a decent track record, but what about Royce? He should also be left alone, Jan thinks. “The same goes for Royce. He has lost his father. I find it all so easy to shout that now.”
That’s all well and good, but Hélène thinks something went wrong. “Yes, but of course there is something special in that interview. Should he actually have fired him (Khalid Kasem, ed.)?”
Jan fulfills his role with verve: “I was thinking: maybe it happens elsewhere too, that you experience something in your company, that someone has done something that you say: ‘Yes, guys, this is the last time , because if you do this again, it’s done.’”
Integrity
Hélène intervenes when Jan is justifying this. “But Jan… Everything revolves around integrity as a lawyer and with Peter R. de Vries, with Royce and with Khalid. You can lose it once and then not again.”
Jan: “That’s right, that’s right. I don’t say it well either, but I can imagine that they talked about it that way. What I don’t understand is that those things were still on a computer somewhere. Who hacked that and what interest is there in making it public?”
Diversionary maneuver
A diversionary maneuver, Hélène thinks. “Do you think that is a bigger problem than what has been released?”
Jan: “There will be an investigation and there are two versions. What is true? I also do not know it.”
Pieter Cobelens believes that we should not canonize the De Vriesjes either. “Regardless of what you think of De Vries, he was a great guy, but if he did stupid things, he did stupid things.”
Clear facts
Hélène has a lot of confidence in AD’s investigative journalism. “In any case, the fact remains that Yelle Tieleman has done very good work, very clever work.”
Sidekick Jack van Gelder: “As long as it is not proven that he did something wrong, we will have to wait and see before everyone starts judging again.”
Hélène: “You may wonder whether it has been proven in the newspaper. It contains clear facts.”