By our entertainment editors
05 dec 2023 om 09:43
The brother and widow of Jeroen van Merwijk have a conflict about the farewell album that was made for the deceased comedian. According to Van Merwijk’s wife, her brother-in-law still has to pay her back part of the proceeds.
“I feel treated like a villainous criminal, while it was a gift for a terminally ill person,” says Lucas van Merwijk in conversation with the newspaper. AD. “I think the worst part is that I can’t close my brother’s death like this.”
Jeroen van Merwijk was seriously ill due to metastatic colon cancer. His colleague Herman Finkers came up with the idea of making a farewell album for him. Other colleagues then performed Van Merwijk’s work.
Paul van Vliet, Jack Spijkerman and Katinka Polderman, among others, contributed to the album. Lucas was also involved in the project and made arrangements of the songs.
Initially, three hundred copies of the album were made, but the comedian and his wife Jeannette van Merwijk-van Loenen felt that the CD should be distributed more widely. More than 6,500 copies have now been sold.
Van Merwijk died in March 2021. According to Lucas, his sister-in-law called him six weeks later to ask if he could give her a financial overview of the CD sales. He could not immediately respond to this and a month later he received a letter from her lawyer. The widow wanted to stop the sale immediately.
‘She wants to see more and more money’
It led to a lawsuit. The judge ruled that the comedian’s widow was entitled to the financial statements, the album’s master CD (the original recording) and 66.6 percent of the proceeds. Lucas said he had already sent that overview earlier. The proceeds were also divided.
But according to Van Merwijk-van Loenen, this is not yet the full amount and that is why she is now imposing a penalty of 50,000 euros. “She keeps wanting to see more money,” says Lucas. “I’ve already had a bailiff on my roof five times.” The comedian’s brother has decided to pay the penalty so that the case can be concluded.
The comedians who collaborated on the album support Lucas. Comedian Bavo Galama has proposed using all proceeds for the Jeroen van Merwijk Fund that has yet to be established. Van Merwijk-van Loenen rejected this proposal. “I think it’s absolutely terrible,” says Lucas. “Everything beautiful is gone.”
2023-12-05 08:43:53
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