The usually cheerful program Love for music took a different turn last week when Marthe spoke candidly about a difficult time. She did this in response to the song ‘Try’ by singer Colbie Caillat, which was sung and reminds her of that time.
“When I became K3, there were suddenly a lot of opinions about my appearance,” she says. These were not always positive and affected her deeply, but she put on a mask to the outside world. “That song basically says what I didn’t do then, but I do now,” says Marthe about ‘Try’. At one point it was so bad that a Flemish magazine made an analysis of her looks. “It said on the cover that I was the ugly one from K3.”
The song has a special meaning for her, because she covered the song together with her brother Laurens. “When we put that cover online, I really received a lot of positive reactions. That made me very happy,” she says with a lump in her throat.
The criticism of her appearance even started before she was an official member of K3. Gert Verhulst was also guilty of it: he gave in the program K2 is looking for K3 that her eyes gave a ‘sad look’. She was even asked if she would like to have this changed cosmetically, to which she replied at the time: “If it makes me look happier in the photo, why not?” Fortunately, Marthe received a lot of support on social media after this comment.
A few years later, Marthe was the talk of the town again when it turned out that her face had been completely photoshopped on the cover of their new album Ushuaia. Fans called it ‘a great shame’, after which Studio 100 changed the cover.
Only now does Marthe dare to admit that all those comments have meant a lot to her. At the time, she felt that she was not allowed to elaborate on this because of her position in K3. “Despite the fact that those things were written, as a K3 you are always cheerful. So I never showed or said how deep this sometimes went.”
