“It was really bizarre how enthusiastic the audience was last weekend in Malta. There were 15,000 people there, who started clapping en masse after three sentences. When I finished singing, everyone stood up. Very cool.”
Sitting at the wooden dining table in the spacious kitchen of her parental home in Kerkrade, the rapidly rising teenage star Emma describes how she had felt two days earlier, in front of that frenzied audience: “As if I could handle the whole world.”
Teary cheeks everywhere
Young Emma and her entire family were flown in for a guest appearance by André Rieu, who gave two large outdoor concerts in a square in Valetta, on the Mediterranean island of Malta. She sang the song ‘Voilà’ by the French singer Barbara Pravi.
In July she was allowed to do the same at a packed Vrijthof in Maastricht. People in the audience who kept it dry could hardly be found without a flashlight and magnifying glass.
The images of the compelling performance in Maastricht went viral. They have now been viewed more than fifteen million times. Anyone who has never heard of the Limburg teenager who won the talent show The Voice Kids two years ago probably has now.
The young singer knows exactly what she wants: “To become world famous, a superstar. Very cliché perhaps, but that is really my childhood dream.”
Stomach paralysis
But there is something else she longs for. At least as much: “I wish I could heal.”
Emma has the rare chronic disease gastroparesis, also called gastric paralysis. The diagnosis came five years ago, but the complaints had always been there.
Her stomach barely tolerates or digests food. She therefore receives liquid food through a stomach tube 22 hours a day.
When Emma’s parents and her older brother and sister have dinner in the evening, Emma sits with a pureed baby snack or a small piece of rice cake. That’s all the solid food she can handle in one day.
Everywhere Emma goes, she carries a large bag containing two large pumps, which are connected to her tube. The girl is also ‘stuck’ at night. The pumps are then also plugged into the socket for charging.
She used to drag those damn pumps to school with her as a little child. “They were on a walker. They were far too heavy for me to carry at the time.”
Emma expresses what she felt from a very young age: “I’m not like the rest.”
Emma’s mother Nathalie, who always travels to performances and also sits next to her daughter at the kitchen table during the interview with RTL Nieuws, looks at the girl and says: “Especially after that accident on the schoolyard.”
‘That accident’ happened in the first week of group 3. “Because I wanted to hang on a jungle gym, a friend lifted me up. We fell over together on the tubes of my feeding tube. This caused it to come loose.”
Screaming in the school yard
In the middle of the schoolyard, little Emma started screaming and panicking. She almost fainted. Her mother got a call. And 112. A little later she was in an ambulance, which took her to the hospital. The probe was urgently replaced there.
As a baby she was operated on several times for reflux. This means that your stomach contents keep flowing back into your esophagus. As a result of one of those operations, Emma can no longer vomit.
In the hospital
As a toddler, she was therefore hospitalized for three weeks with a ‘simple’ stomach flu. Her mother: “We throw up a few times and then we’re done with it. So she can’t do that.”
Emma also tires more quickly than others. Moreover, she is smaller than average. “Now I’m 1.51 metres. In group 7 of primary school I think I was 1.30 metres.”
Her mother, who is currently checking the laptop to see what business emails and requests have come in for her daughter, looks up briefly: “I think you were even smaller.”
Bullied
Emma became the target of bullying. “I was called a living gnome. And because of the walker with the pumps, they also called me grandma. I was excluded and there was constant gossip about me behind my back.”
In group 8 she went to another school, hoping that things would go better there. “For a while that was the case. But soon the bullying started there too.”
A bright spot at that time was the children’s choir that Emma had become a member of. She also took singing lessons. “I immediately really liked that. I really enjoyed it.”
The succes
That’s how she signed up for the RTL 4 talent show The Voice Kids. “That was during one of the lockdowns during corona time. Actually a bit out of boredom.” Emma chuckles. Her mother says: “We honestly thought: we’ll never hear anything about that.”
Things turned out differently. The teenager – then 13 years old – won the final with flying colors in 2021. “That was really cool.”
After that victory, the girl released three singles: ‘Let me be a butterfly’ and ‘Strijder’ were written by Tjeerd Oosterhuis. This summer the cover Voilà, with Rieu and his orchestra, was also released separately.
Only with meaning
They are all songs about adult themes. The desire for a free life, fears, wanting to be seen, the desire to take off your mask. “I don’t sing songs that mean nothing to me. I consciously want to show my vulnerable side.”
Also on social media she does that: “I post photos of the fun things, but also of the annoying ones. So of my performances, but if my tube needs to be replaced in the hospital, I share that too.”
High peaks and deep valleys, that’s how Emma’s mother describes her young daughter’s life so far. She has already starred in her own theater show, at the Vrijthof, in Malta.
From January onwards she will travel frequently with Rieu and his orchestra. Belgium. Germany, Czech Republic; In various countries she will try to enchant the audience with her rendition of ‘Voilà’. There is a good chance that she will succeed.
Always with mother
On the day that Emma spoke to RTL News, she visited the attendance officer in the morning. She will probably not complete her last year of school, VMBO 4, at the private school where she now attends, but at the world school: “I will then receive online lessons. Then I can learn on tour and do assignments and tests in the hotel. Or in on the plane or on the bus.”
Emma always sings before the break in a show, early in the evening. Her mother: “Only then will she keep it up. And I travel everywhere with her. You don’t let such a young girl go alone.”
Emma herself laughs and says: “I would also be very homesick for you.”
There will be some ‘home games’ at the end of this year. The ‘Christmas with André Rieu’ shows at the MECC in Maastricht are coming up. Emma can also sing and shine during the evening programs Fred and Friends by Fred van Leer in the Ahoy in Rotterdam.
Psychologist
But there are also frequent visits to a psychologist to deal with her bullying history. And especially to learn to accept that her illness is part of her and will never go away. “I find the latter very difficult.”
There are days when she is terribly annoyed by a lack of energy, not being able to eat with friends or family, her feeding tube and especially those two pumps that have to go with her everywhere and everywhere. “Sometimes I just want to throw them out the window.”
In February this year, Emma won the SBS 6 show Ministars. She used the prize money of 25,000 euros to… founding to establish. “I want to bring fellow sufferers into contact with each other, but above all I want to raise money for research.”
There is currently no cure for the condition gastroparesis. “Research literally requires tons of money. And a hospital that actually wants to start a study with that money. That is still a long way off. But I want to do what I can. For myself and for others.”
Gain
She already experiences the fact that her position in the spotlight allows her to raise awareness about her disease: “Young women with gastroparesis are often first thought to have an eating disorder. Or people are told by the doctor that they have I just have to train my stomach. There is a lot of misunderstanding.”
She adds: “We want to eat, but we can’t. If we do, we will be in a lot of pain.”
Hearing yourself on the radio
In the kitchen, Emma demonstrates with a teddy bear how her gastric tube is attached. “Look, the food runs through this tube through a hole in my stomach wall.” Then suddenly her rendition of ‘Voilà’ blares from the radio. “Hey mom, did you hear that? That’s me. Really crazy to hear that. Very cool.”
The song is Radio 5’s MAX disc this week and is being played extensively. Can also be crossed off the list of ambitions.
Mother Nathalie proudly looks at her daughter, then turns to her and says: “Your power and strength, I find them so admirable. How you deal with your illness.”
Free
Emma finds everything she experiences as a singer ‘cool’ and ‘cool’. “People then say: she’s really doing well, right? That’s certainly the case on stage. But that doesn’t make her struggle disappear. Singing makes life much more beautiful for her, that’s for sure.”
Emma herself agrees: “That is certainly true. I am free on stage.”
Sunday interview
Every Sunday we publish an interview in text and photos of someone who does or has experienced something special. That can be a major event that the person deals with admirably. The Sunday interviews have in common that the story has a major influence on the life of the interviewee.
Are you or do you know someone who would be suitable for a Sunday interview? Let us know via this email address: Zondaginterview@rtl.nl
Read the previous Sunday interviews here.
2023-09-10 06:10:53
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