1. What’s going on?
The Voice of Holland is temporarily discontinued due to alleged sexually transgressive behavior by some employees. Tim Hofman’s BNNVARA program BOOS came out with the allegations. An episode of the BNN-VARA BOOS will be online on Thursday, in which the allegations against the employees are discussed.
RTL channel and producer ITV, the company that makes The Voice, say they have known nothing about sexual misconduct. But they found the allegations so serious and shocking that it was decided to open an independent investigation, and until then not to broadcast The Voice. The Voice senior and The Voice kids are also indefinite taken off the tube.
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2. Who is it?
The band leader of The Voice, Jeroen Rietbergen, has confessed that the allegations of sexual misconduct be true to him. He got up. He had relationships of a “sexual nature” with women involved in The Voice of Holland, he reported.
Linda de Mol announced on Monday that she has broken off her relationship with Rietbergen and will stop working for the time being. She described the situation as a ‘terrible nightmare’. Johnny de Mol, Linda’s cousin, mentioned Rietbergen in his own talk show HLF8 ‘an incredible bastard’. Television producer John de Mol, creator of The Voice, (and brother of Linda and father of Johnny) has not yet responded.
It’s not just about Rietbergen. A report was filed against coach Ali B at the beginning of last week, allegedly by a former participant of The Voice. The Public Prosecution Service will soon decide whether there will be an investigation. Ali B does not recognize himself in the accusation. “Ali has never abused his position and has never acted sexually transgressive,” his management said.
It has not been announced which employee(s) are involved.
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3. How do former participants react?
Two former candidates joined the BEAU talk show on Monday evening, who sketched a picture of how it went behind the scenes at The Voice. Nienke Wijnhoven, who made it to the final in 2018, told how charming band leader Jeroen Rietbergen was, but also how he always went one step further.
“There was a situation where he said there were all studios upstairs and I could see them.” When they were upstairs ‘he was going to feel’, said Wijnhoven. In the clip below you can see that she became emotional when she spoke about it.
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Kirsten Berkx was also a guest at BEAU, she participated in the program in 2017. When she walked down the hall in a kind of ‘pyjamas’ after a rehearsal, she received an annoying remark from Rietbergen. “What horny pants you have on, he said.”
Both women did not dare to say anything about his behavior at the time. For example, because they put the blame on themselves, but also because they had signed an impressive contract for participation in The Voice. “You have signed a contract of which you no longer know what it says by God”, Wijnhoven said.
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4. How do the presenters and coaches react?
Anouk, one of the coaches of The Voice, made this weekend in a video known to stop. She calls the program ‘a corrupt gang’.
Presenter Chantal Janzen said before not a good word to say for the parties and people who have been aware of the allegations of sexual misconduct at The Voice for years. Presenter Martijn Krabbé also said that he was ‘completely surprised’ and ‘in shock’ by the news.
Coach Waylon’s manager responded with the message at least this isn’t about him. “It’s just very sad. We didn’t know anything about it and we didn’t get a call from Tim, probably because we have nothing to do with this.”
Glennis Grace, who has only just joined the program as a coach, also says through her manager that she is ‘in shock’.
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5. What are the consequences for the TV program?
The program consists of 15 episodes in total. Of these, 12 have been recorded and 2 have already been broadcast. The last 3 would be broadcast live. Those recorded episodes will remain – at least for now – on the shelf.
Sponsors of the program are withdrawing. This weekend, T-Mobile and Lidl already said they would stop. On Monday, Isla Pastilles and Renault were added.
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6. What next?
The first step is an independent investigation into exactly what happened. ITV, the producer of the program The Voice of Holland, has issued a press release calling on victims of inappropriate behavior and witnesses to report. ITV promises that the information will go directly to Van Doorne’s lawyers, who are conducting the investigation.
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