Astrid Holleeder was brought into RTL as if she were some kind of goddess. Nice for the gimmick, that reveal of her face, but indicating crime on TV? That doesn’t go well for her. “Trauma.”
It is a bit of a mistake on RTL’s part that they brought in Astrid Holleeder purely because of her intriguing surname. It says talk show signer on her pay slip, but she really doesn’t know anything about that. After she closed in early October after receiving a substantive question, we have barely seen her in RTL Tonight.
Astrid lingers
Why Astrid is no longer present? She said she had to overcome ‘some obstacles’. According to Janine Schuinder, reporter for Shownieuws, these are obstacles on a psychological level. “She only now realizes what happened to her. In my opinion, she is still a bit stuck in it,” she says in the show program.
During a major TV interview with EO star Kefah Allush for his program De Kist, Astrid became very emotional. “She is actually processing that a bit on TV?”, says presenter Annemarie Brüning.
Trauma
Yes, Janine agrees. “And that is probably the reason why she is no longer seen as much on RTL Tonight. She has to explain current events, but everything refers to what she has experienced, which of course is very logical. This makes it difficult to properly explain current topics. She constantly returns.”
Telegraaf reporter Jordi Versteegden: “It is a trauma for her.”
‘Can’t work!’
Is that correct? Yes, Janine thinks. “It is definitely a trauma, so I hope that she will one day get rid of it, and that she can be more than Willem Holleeder’s sister.”
Jordi: “But that won’t work, I don’t think. I find it very difficult to say for her, of course, because she wants that and we grant her that, but this is her past. She was grandly unveiled at RTL Boulevard at the time as if it were an episode of The Masked Singer. I thought that was so terribly done.”
American
You can only make a first impression once, says Jordi. “It was about her story, but it seemed like an American TV show how she was revealed. She was on television so often in a row, often for days, telling her story. That made me feel like I almost got tired of it, while you also felt sorry for her.”
According to Janine, Astrid would better give up that dream of explaining legal cases on TV. “It’s also difficult. When she goes to a court case – I’ve met her before – she goes in and immediately out again. She doesn’t really make a connection or anything with what’s happening there.”
‘She’s scared’
Why Astrid flies in and out? She is afraid of being murdered on behalf of the brother she betrayed: top criminal Willem Holleeder. “And she is then dependent on other people to tell her what exactly happened. She is constantly afraid and it is difficult to sit at a table as an interpreter,” says Janine.
She concludes: “Astrid always remains in such a safety bubble, unfortunately for her. I think it is problematic to often join RTL Tonight.”