Youp van ‘t Hek understands very well that a table guest of Sophie Hilbrand has stormed away from the table. “She tried to get out of it by saying that the guest was emotional!”
Last week, Sophie Hilbrand got into an argument with a talk show guest in Bar Laat, because the Palestine activist in question felt that she was not given enough speaking time at the table. “Photos would be shown of my family. I would talk about my family being murdered. I don’t think we talked about that,” said Esther van der Most.
Off the table
It is striking how little gallant Sophie dealt with this woman, because she then spoke to her in a very pedantic manner. She was also punished for this by Angela de Jong: “As if she tried very hard to explain something that was very obvious in a very patient tone to an unreasonable child.”
Ultimately, Esther decided to walk away from the studio during a video, after which Sophie claimed: “Esther left the table, because it made her very emotional. She would talk about her family, relatives of hers died in Palestine and that is of course horrible.”
What does Youp think?
Nonsense, responds Youp van ‘t Hek. “Sophie tried to get out of it by saying that Esther was emotional, but of course that was not the point,” he writes in his column in the VARA guide. “It was wonderful to see someone shake up that rusty talk show world.”
Youp is completely on the team of the runaway talk show guest in this regard. “She would talk about her family being murdered. Not a light subject. So I understand her outrage.”
Doubly annoying
Youp himself has often experienced that the talk show host announces even though the topic he came for has not yet been discussed. “That is doubly annoying because, before you joined, you had a long telephone conversation with an editor. I have often come home with a bad feeling from such a television incident.”
“Simply because some jerk at the table, such an unstoppable professional old whore, was galloping on his hobby horse for far too long. And I always regretted that my parents once raised me way too well and that was why I didn’t scold the presenter live in the program.”