Years ago Sonja Bakker shot out of nowhere with her weight loss books like a comet. But now there seems to be little left of the sober West Frisian with a warm and stable family… Two divorces, a third son and various interventions to adjust Mother Nature a little later, the weight loss guru is said to be in a huge relationship crisis. Where did it go wrong?
Text continues below ad
–
–
Before Sonja became a national fame, she had it all: happiness in the game and love. In 2005 she launched her first weight loss book from her detached house in Spierdijk – close to Hoorn. A dream came true, she said at the time. Because for years Sonja had the idea to give her practice as a weight consultant more body with her own book.
Brilliant marketing
It was her then husband Koen Lenting who was able to market the mother of their two sons, Tristan and Finn, in a brilliant way. By first depositing her book at the counter of local supermarkets, a real run was created on her weight loss method. Not much later the ‘effective program to lose weight’ with accompanying shopping lists seeped through outside West Friesland.
It went fast, the fame of Sonja. A magazine started a waste challenge with her under her guidance, the largest newspaper in the Netherlands spotted a new star in the sky and in no time Sonja could no longer be ignored. So far, so good.
Military precision
In the meantime Sonja and her family had moved to a larger house in the nearby village where she grew up: Avenhorn. From the garden house, a logistical miracle was performed with military precision with the launch of each new book. Even her marketing manager had a full-time job on the side!
READ ALSO: Police intervenes in ‘relationship drama’ Sonja Bakker
It got bigger and bigger, more compelling. The ideas kept bubbling up to the creative Sonja. However, when the developed glossy and a brand-new office building on the outskirts of her village were a fact, her marriage showed its first cracks.
Sonja’s creativity was too exhausted by her husband, she explained. A disastrous moment in her marriage turned out to be when the weight loss queen traveled to the South of France to be interviewed by Rik Felderhof for his program Villa Felderhof. One, which they themselves described as “deep friendship” emerged.
Adultery
Stories about adultery committed in Sonja’s writer’s house in Schoorl were circulating. Something that has been emphatically denied by both Rik and her. Whatever the case, it did not help the shaky relationship with Koen in any way and the divorce in 2009 was inevitable.
In 2011 Sonja meets old acquaintance Jan Reus. In her youth she had worked in one of his flower shops. During a weekend in Barcelona, the two were separated from each other and a year later their son Bram was born. The year after, 2013, Jan and Sonja get married in Ibiza.
READ ALSO: Viewers in shock by ‘renovated’ Sonja Bakker
Ibiza is also the party island where Sonja has been thriving for years. Very carefully, small changes to her appearance can already be seen, starting with a whole bunch of blonde extensions in her hair. It must have been quite a party in Ibiza with Jan. Stories about more than cozy parties pop up every now and then, with a ‘novel’ of the lightest kind that was actually written by husband Jan, to which Sonja later associates her own name. The term: ‘flat egg cake sex’ was born after that. The book’s sales were woefully low for a best-selling writer.
Upwelling
Despite all the parties, it has become increasingly uncomfortable between Jan and Sonja, who had started a bed & breakfast in a very expensive old mayor’s house in Hoorn on a whim. This becomes clear when the divorce is announced in 2017.
Not long after the breakup and the purchase of a villa in the artists’ village of Bergen, however, Cupid hit again. It is broker Barry van Suijdam for whom Sonja fell in love. The tall, sporty curly hair would be the love of her life, judging by the many, many digital declarations of love between the two on social media. And she his.
It is now rumored that the two have been having problems for some time. That Sonja has wanted to put him on the cobblestones before, but that was always reconciled. The story in Story, about an argument that got out of hand after a hopefully corona-responsible party in Hoorn with police intervention as a result, seems to have caused a definitive break. Although that has not yet been confirmed.
Rising amazement
The audience looks at this with increasing amazement. Because wasn’t it last week that Sonja was overjoyed to promote her new book alongside Barry? Their love was still taken for granted at the time. It was the “full-bodied” face of the weight-loss diva that was much discussed on Twitter.
“Connie Witteman’s sister?” many wondered. The saddest thing about the whole situation is that she has not only started to look a bit like Witteman with her face that has become unrecognizable. Just like Connie happened, Sonja’s love life isn’t always about roses …
What we wrote earlier on DenD.nl:
–
–
