John de Mol just has no idea

After fourteen minutes in ANGRY. This is the Voice Suddenly a woman appeared on the screen, filmed from the back, further unrecognizable by a black hood. Above her, seagulls screeched in the winter sky. She told Tim Hofman that she was going to press charges against Ali B. Van for rape.

It was one of the shock moments in a broadcast that hung together from the horrific stories. Marco Borsato who touched the buttocks and hips of children. The dickpics, comments and other border crossings with nineteen (!) women by Jeroen Rietbergen. The dire details of how Ali B lured a former candidate into his studio with music talks. There he suddenly began to kiss her, after which she stiffened. It was still difficult for her to call it rape after eight years, she told Hofman. “I still feel like it’s my own fault.” Afterwards she had asked Ali if he wasn’t afraid it would leak out. “No, because no one is going to believe you.”

The messages that ANGRY Speeding ahead was not easy, but the whole story turned out to be much worse. The cesspool was deep and full – and at times it was hard not to turn away from the screen. One woman told how at a party she was chased from room to room by Ali B, where he offered her money, slipped his hand into her pants and forced her to perform oral sex. The research done by Hofman and his editors was exemplary, the way in which the anonymous witnesses were portrayed was respectful – patient investigative journalism in an area where scandal often predominates. So this BOOS simultaneously became a broadcast that you would want everyone to see and one that you wish no one had to see – or make.

Mea culpa

The most remarkable guest appeared on the screen after fifty minutes: John de Mol. the man who The Voice of Holland years, five days of silence ended in the only right place: at ANGRY yourself. He was, he said, “quite confused.” De Mol was careful not to question the stories, acknowledged that he was responsible and pronounced a ‘mea culpa’. Jeroen Rietbergen had he shown “all corners of the room” in 2019 after a complaint about a dick pic had been received; otherwise he had never heard anything about wrongdoing.

Still, it was a shocking conversation. Because when De Mol was asked about the power relationship between his brother-in-law Rietbergen and candidates, he believed that it did not exist because Rietbergen had no formal say over the competition. This ruler did not seem to understand that you should look at the question of a power relationship from the point of view of the powerless. His main point of action was with the victims: they had to speak up. There were counters in his company. “If nobody says anything, we can’t do anything.” He found referring to a culture of fear “too easy”. Women “apparently have a kind of shame,” he concluded his problem analysis. It didn’t seem to be ill will. John de Mol just has no idea.

BOOS added a statement by expert Willy van Berlo: “Again: the responsibility always lies with the person who crosses the border and not with the person who is affected. Is it that clear enough?”