Jan Smit gets a big club on the back of the head from RTL Boulevard. After eight months, the program reveals images of the folk singer behaving in a very ‘hostile’ manner.
It was already coming: Jan Smit is leaving the Eurovision Song Contest completely, because he is also giving up his role as commentator. The official reason is laughable, because it is pretended that he finally has time to present a program on the radio once a week. What’s really going on? Of course there is a big deal.
Jan very mean
Jan is playing well again and to make this clear to the viewer, RTL Boulevard has now decided to images never before broadcast of him to reveal. The singer behaved rather ugly eight months ago when reporter Aran Bade asked him about his alleged dissatisfaction with the entry of the flop duo Mia & Dion.
Voice-over Jeroen Kijk in de Vegte explains: “When Mia & Dion retreat, Jan Smit closes its shutters. The fact that the relationship between Jan and the Eurovision team has cooled becomes even clearer when we finally get the chance to ask about it.”
‘I want to keep it that way!’
Then Boulevard starts an interview that has never been broadcast before, held on June 22 last year. Aran says to Jan, who is standing next to colleague Chantal Janzen: “We haven’t spoken to each other at all in Liverpool.”
Jan: “I would like to keep it that way!”
Aran: “I just wanted to ask…”
Jan: “We are really so busy with this Festival of Liebe… I don’t have time to think about other things, Aran, so save yourself the trouble.”
‘Save the trouble’
Aran insists: “But not then. A question…”
Jan: “Save yourself the trouble.”
Aran: “How do you look back on it?”
Jan: “I had a great week.”
Aran: “Are you thinking: yes, we should take a good look at it? An evaluation.”
Jan in a gloomy tone: “I think you should go to Better Hearing, Aran.”
‘We’re broadcasting this!’
Aran is shocked by Jan’s hostility. “We’re broadcasting this, aren’t we?”
Jan: “Yes, that’s good.”
Aran: “Yes, is this all you want to say about it?”
Jan: “I’m not going to say anything about it and I don’t want to say anything about it. I just stated that very nicely.”
Aran: “And why is that?”
‘How hostile!’
Jan then attacks Aran personally. “Because I don’t need it. Because I’m working on this right now. For you it might be… Your whole life revolves around the Eurovision Song Contest, but for me there is more to life than looking back on something that I haven’t really thought about at all, so that says more about you than it does about me.”
Aran: “How hostile all at once.”
RTL Boulevard chose not to broadcast the interview at the time, but it does so now. “Because it sheds a different light on what we know,” says Aran, pointing to Jan’s departure from the Eurovision Song Contest.
Different quote
Jan was spared by Boulevard at the time. “We said in consultation: ‘We will just broadcast another quote’, because otherwise all attention would be focused on these quotes from Jan. We had not heard Jan at all at the time. Jan’s team was not happy about it, nor was anyone. There was complete panic there.”
He continues: “We did not do that at the time, but with the knowledge we know now that his departure as a commentator is mentioned in a small subordinate sentence in the press release… Yes, that is of course nonsense that the radio show is the reason he is quitting.”
Self-reflection
Aran thinks Jan is being childish. “There must be some self-reflection on his part, including that you shouldn’t do it that way. That’s why we broadcast it now. There is also a certain resentment towards us and towards the media that we ask about it. That’s really completely unfair, I think. He has been the commentator.”
It must have something to do with the fact that Jan was the only member of the selection committee at the time who did not want Mia & Dion to go to the Eurovision Song Contest. “I think that caused bad blood with Jan. But anyway, (…) he also has to look into his own bosom. If you don’t want to talk to us about it, then I just think that’s childish.”