Saskia Belleman is celebrated as one of the best talk show guests in the Netherlands today, but she almost missed out on becoming a celebrity herself. The reason? Her initial skepticism about tweeting about chocolate sprinkles. “What nonsense,” she once thought.
The failure of the ill-fated television program RTL Tonight opened new doors for Belleman. The courtroom reporter, who famously sported a short haircut after a mishap with a TV stylist, ultimately chose to join the talk show Pauw & De Wit. But she had numerous options.
A Close Call with Fame
It’s astonishing to consider that Saskia Belleman nearly never became a celebrity at all. Her rise to fame originated from her pioneering approach to tweeting during high-profile court cases, although she initially held reservations about this method.
Her journey began in 2010 during the Fitna trial against Geert Wilders. Belleman recalls thinking, “Tomorrow, we’ll all be telling essentially the same story in the newspapers. What more can I add?” It was a colleague who suggested she take to Twitter to provide real-time updates.
The ‘Hagelslag’ Dilemma
Initially, she resisted the idea. “I thought Twitter was a nonsensical medium. I would see tweets from people in supermarkets unable to decide which chocolate sprinkles to choose. I thought, who cares about that?”
However, Belleman decided to give it a shot. She discovered that the platform was ideally suited for broadcasting immediate updates on legal cases. “You can release information right away. People can read along live and ask questions,” she found.
Navigating Complexity
In the beginning, she found it a bit complicated. “The fact that hundreds of thousands of followers would join didn’t even cross my mind. I didn’t anticipate that at all.”
Today, Twitter has been rebranded as X, and it remains a controversial medium. Yet Belleman is undeterred. “It’s precisely those people who get animated on X that I want to reach. I think, ‘You don’t quite understand how this works, so let me explain it to you.’ There’s a bit of a missionary spirit in me, I think.”
