Tina Nijkamp has only been horribly abused once in her television career, says the former channel boss of SBS 6. “That happened to be by Gordon. I walked away crying.”
All radio and TV programs are again about transgressive behavior. Countless TV celebrities are asked about their own experiences, including Tina Nijkamp. The former channel boss of SBS 6 states that she has only suffered from inappropriate behavior once in her career, namely by Gordon.
Gordon bashes Tina
How exactly does that work? “As a girl, I was scolded a lot once when I first started in television. I have to be honest: that’s pretty much it for me. I don’t have many bad experiences, but I think every woman recognizes that you experience these kinds of things sometimes,” Tina says in the program. The Friday Move.
Was it normal at that time to be treated like that? “No, I was just working at The 5 Hour Show at the time. I had just finished my internship and was then allowed to stay. That was in 1994. That was not seen as normal at all at the time. It was not by an employee, but coincidentally by Gordon.”
Homosexual
Gordon came out of the closet in that program, if that was still necessary. “I was an editor there and I had to prepare the interview that Catherine Keyl was going to do with him and then we always had audience questions. He had already said to me in advance: ‘I don’t want to talk about my private life.’”
Host Wilfred Genee cynically: “Well, that has completely changed now, hasn’t it!”
Tina: “Yes, haha! But in that viewer questions section we asked: ‘Do you have a boyfriend or girlfriend?’ And then he went on air to say he was homosexual.”
Did not sleep well
Wilfred thinks it is a striking story. “Actually, Tina Nijkamp got Gordon out of the closet?”
Tina: “Well, Catherine asked that question, but of course he wasn’t happy about it and neither was his manager. I didn’t sleep well for three nights because of it.”
Wilfred: “You were blamed for Catherine asking that question?”
Tina: “Yes, he said: ‘I’ll make sure you never work in the TV world again!’”
Good intervention
That threat hit Tina terribly hard. “I was a girl from Bathmen who had finally seen her dreams come true and could join television. I had dreamed of that every day my whole life, so that was a shock. Good action was taken, because my boss Leo Janssen then said: ‘Tina, this is not possible. I’m going to make sure it works out.’”
Was Gordon summoned at the time? “Yes, he was spoken to at the time, but of course there were no consequences, but I went upstairs crying and was completely upset. I was 20 and thought: my life as a TV maker, which I have dreamed of all my life, is coming to an end.”
Any incident
It is the only transgressive incident Tina has experienced. “Coincidentally, yesterday I texted a colleague of mine there, saying: ‘We didn’t have this kind of thing at all at The 5 Hour Show, did we?’ No, just that Gordon story.”
She was treated unfairly once during her time as SBS 6 boss, Tina concludes. “But I have to say, I immediately said: ‘I think you should just shut up now.’ Look, that was when I was program leader at SBS 6, so I did have a managerial position, so that is a little easier than if you were an editor.”