Melissa starts by saying that she does not resemble the neat Miss Rose in the slightest. “They are two completely different worlds,” she says before taking a sip of whiskey. “I am often chosen for those kinds of safe roles. Maybe because of my appearance. I get it somewhere, but it is a shame that you are so quickly in such a box in the Netherlands and never get out of it.”
What viewers don’t see is the ‘dark person’ she claims to be. “I’m tougher and more interesting than I can show now.” Something that bothered her at the time of her Meerdijk period. “That was also pretty frumpy. I didn’t like it. It was just making tea, folding the laundry and crying.”
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Melissa thinks that people expect that she has led a certain life in the Gooi because of her appearance, but nothing could be further from the truth. She comes from a social security family in Schagen. Her father was deeply depressed, her mother made ends meet by doing undeclared work. “There was really very little money. She made our clothes herself.”
The marriage between her parents was not good, she continues. “That’s also difficult when someone is so depressed. I remember when I was a child pushing them together: kiss each other. That just didn’t happen. (…) I really wanted my mother to be happy, proud.”
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