Terminally ill Jan Rot: ‘Shows of support Smartest person heartwarming'

Rot was already on the broadcast last week and will participate again on Monday. According to the rules of the program, candidates can only participate once, but an exception was made for Rot. In the first season of The smartest person in 2012, the musician also participated and finished in the final, against Arjen Lubach, who eventually won.

Rot even won the day’s edition of the program on Thursday. The singer and songwriter outsmarted his opponents, director Johan Nijenhuis and artist Steef de Jong, with 309 points.

“It’s heartwarming,” he says The Telegraph about the responses he received. “The gun factor is great. Everyone also grants me this fun. Nice to be able to participate again for the ‘echie’ instead of muttering the right answers at home on the couch.”

He realized beforehand how he would feel during the broadcast. “Everyone with cancer knows, you have good days and bad days, and you can’t measure that.”

The first day went smoothly. The singer and lyricist visibly enjoyed the performance. At the start of the quiz, he probably apologized in case he didn’t perform well.

“If I’m really stupid, I can say it’s the chemo.” Presenter Philip Freriks picked up on this halfway through the broadcast and stated after an excellent round “not much of that chemo.”

Final week

Things went less well on Friday, says Rot. ,,I got off to a terrible start, but a question about Father Drees helped me with a Houdini-esque breakaway.” He is looking forward to the next broadcast, in the final week. “The campaign has already been successful. But I won’t tell you how it goes.”

In the summer, Rot was told that he has metastatic colon cancer. Rot is a writer of books, songs and translated the lyrics of musicals like Hello Dolly! and Jersey Boys. Also the lyrics of the Dutch version of rock opera Tommy van The Who are from his hand.