The most popular family in the Netherlands, the Meiland family, moves back to the Netherlands. Even now, Martien, Erica, Maxime, Montana and Claire are closely followed by the cameras of SBS and we see how the family says goodbye to the castle in France. NU.nl speaks to the Meilandjes about the move, their fame and the new season.
Every week around a million people watch you. In France you were still fairly anonymous, but here in the Netherlands you will be recognized regularly. How is that?
Martien: “When I walk into the supermarket, I happily say good morning to everyone twenty times. They are really nice people here.”
Maxime: “That is exactly why I prefer to go alone for a while: everyone wants to have their picture taken with dad, but that is really less with me and mom. And just going to the supermarket quickly is a lot easier. But I think that’s also an issue. takes some getting used to, now it is still new. “
The new season starts on 31 August Chateau Meiland right away: with two episodes a week.
Martien: “Special isn’t it? I get it, as long as we still have a million viewers every week and it works, it’s nice.”
Everyone was under the spell of corona and we couldn’t do anything, but has enough happened with you in recent weeks?
Maxime: “Yes dude. In the first few broadcasts we are still in the quarantine in France and we are turning the entire chateau upside down.”
Martien: “We call it preparing for sale. Everything clean, painting, wallpapering: we have enough rooms where something really needed to be done. And Erica has been in contact with a contractor for a new septic tank for the chateau.”
Erica: “It all went well, so well that we didn’t even know where exactly it ended up. But nowadays in France they have a new rule that you have to install a new tank within a year of buying such a building, so we are That’s just for that. That’s useful for sales too. “
And the rules in France regarding corona were and are of course also very different, which is also interesting to see as a viewer.
Erica: “That is terrible. You have to wear a mouth mask everywhere, while shopping, when you go out to eat: it almost never comes off.”
Martien: “You are not even allowed to try on clothes when you go shopping. You have to take it home, try it on and bring it back again so that they can clean it all. And in restaurants you can only remove your mouth mask at your table. Here in the Netherlands it is all much nicer, we are glad to be here now. “
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The Meiland family in the living room of the chateau in France. (Photo: Talpa)
How far are you now with the move?
Erica: “We are now 2.5 weeks here in Hengelo and Maxime has just registered here, she is not going back either. Also because Claire is going to childcare here now. Martien and I are commuting back and forth, we have to go again in September. Just five days in that direction, see how things are going everywhere. And mow the grass, because that is going really hard. “
Martien: “Usually I prefer to fly to Bordeaux for a while, but now we just go by car. I don’t want to go to Schiphol with all that crowds and corona. So we take the car. But apart from that, we stay in the Netherlands, I love to to be back again. “
At the beginning of this year I visited farmer Bertie, who had to put a large fence around her house after she had fans of farmer seeks wife found uninvited in the kitchen.
Martien: “Oh that’s awful, isn’t it? We don’t have that, although I must admit that we also have a large fence.”
Erica: “But that is also for Bommel, who otherwise barks after cyclists every time.”
Maxime: “Because of that fence and a large hedge, we do have privacy at the house, which is nice. People also stay outside the fence.”
Erica: “Then they shout at the gate: ‘Wines, wines, wines’, and then they leave again. That was actually worse in France, despite all the signs we put up, people just kept entering the site.”
Maxime: “I found that more disturbing. Then you ask nicely and people just keep going.”
Martien: “On a terrace, when we drink a rosé, take a picture? Fine. But in my own garden? That’s just not fun. I am also a fan of Máxima, I am not going to scream on the lawn there either. ? “
Wines, wines, wines
- The Meiland family was first seen on television in 2009 in the NPO program Ik Departure
- Martien and Erica moved to France with their daughters Montana and Maxime at the time and bought a dilapidated castle
- More than ten years later, the family did the same for their own reality series at SBS
- Every week around a million people watch the family in their French chateau
- Chateau Meiland won the Televizier-Ring in 2019
- In February 2020, the first rumors came that the family wanted to move back to the Netherlands
- In the new season we see how Martien, Erica, Maxime and her daughter Claire leave for Hengelo
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You are not just dealing with fans. I recently saw that various media also stopped by unsolicited.
Martien: “I find that really different from fans. You make an appointment, don’t you? We can’t always agree, then you keep busy.”
But Maxime, in the end you stood Boulevard still speaking, I think that as a viewer also crazy.
Maxime: “I had to open the gate for a friend of mine, because he didn’t want to enter the code because they would ask him all kinds of questions. But the remote control didn’t work through the hedge, so in the end I went for it anyway. stand.”
Martien: “That’s very strange and you don’t get used to it.”
Maxime: “Fortunately we have each other, I keep thinking. We all understand how crazy it is and can support each other in that.”
Can you explain your own popularity?
Maxime: “I think we are different from others and there is always something going on here in the house. Claire is looking at now Pippi Longstocking and then they say something like, ‘I think I can.’ “
Erica: “‘I’ve never done it, so I think I can.”
Maxime: “Exactly! And that’s how we live. We’re just going to try.”
Martien: “Our family composition is of course different: Erica and I are together, but we don’t share the bed.”
Erica: “And despite that, everything we do is very recognizable to people, that you are a bit chomping about each other when you are working together, but afterwards it is just fine again. Everyone has that.”
There has been a lot of fuss around Nadège (the housekeeper in the chateau). She was very angry with social media when it turned out that she could no longer work for you. How are you now?
Erica: “We are out of contact with her. We just pay her salary until the end of her contract in September, but she no longer works for us. She insisted on continuing to do what was in her contract, which was cleaning the rooms and breakfast. But there are no guests, so that fell away. We offered if she wouldn’t help with other things, but she didn’t want to. Then it stops. She was very upset at the time, she saw us more as family than us expected, I think. “
Martien: “We really did our best and you also see in the series that we try to help her with another house, gave her a parquet floor for the kitchen. But she didn’t want anything.”
Maxime: “I was really shocked that she was so unkind on Facebook and said we were fake. I really didn’t expect that. But now it’s done.”
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A still from a broadcast of Chateau Meiland. Left housekeeper Nadège, right Erica and Martien. (Photo: Talpa)
How are things now with the sale of the chateau?
Erica: “This week the chateau also comes to the site of a French real estate agent and we regularly have viewings. A friend of ours is always there, which saves a lot of going back and forth. At one point we had two Belgian buyers and that seemed to go well, but then the second corona wave started and that came to a standstill. “
Martien: “We don’t mind. It’s just a chateau, our life just goes on.”
You do not want to give away too much about what you are going to do in the Netherlands, but is there a chance that the soap will end?
Martien: “That really depends on the audience. As long as people like to watch, we want to continue.”
Maxime: “We also work with such a nice team, it really feels like family. I think that’s why we come across so natural, we really don’t act any different when they are there.”
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