A View from the Beach: Rule 5 Saturday

Saturday, October 19, 2019

Rule 5 Saturday - Sylvie Meis

This week's Rule 5 surprise is Sylvie Meis:

Sylvie Françoise Meis (born 13 April 1978) is a Dutch television personality and model of Dutch East Indies origin. She is also popular in Germany.

Sylvie Meis graduated from the University of West Brabant Aged 18, she decided that she wanted to be a model and was cast for various shoots by casting agencies. After becoming interested in television, she gained popularity through assignments at FoxKids and music station TMF. She hosts several events at TMF, such as presenting the annual TMF-awards, and conducting interviews with international artists such as Britney Spears and Kylie Minogue.

After being elected the Netherlands' Sexiest Female in 2003, she started a relationship with then Ajax footballer Rafael van der Vaart. Due in part to the fame from their individual careers, they soon became the Netherlands' most famous "football couple". Their fame grew after their marriage on 10 June 2005 and live coverage of the wedding on SBS6, a Dutch television channel, with the broadcast gaining high ratings in the Netherlands; Sylvie took Rafael's last name, van der Vaart

Meis and her then husband moved to Germany when he left Ajax to play for Bundesliga football club Hamburger SV. After her husband's 2008 transfer to Real Madrid, the van der Vaarts moved to Spain. Between 2008 and 2011, she was a judge on Das Supertalent, the German version of Simon Cowell's Got Talent series. In 2010 she took part in the third season of the German equivalent of Strictly Come Dancing, called Let's Dance. On 17 April 2010, Meis replaced the usual Deutschland sucht den Superstar judge Nina Eichinger for the final of the 7th season, after the latter was stuck in Los Angeles following flight restrictions as a result of the 2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull. Between 2011 and 2017 Meis has been hosting the show Let's Dance together with Daniel Hartwich. In 2018 she was replaced by former participant Viktoria Swarovski and instead returned to Das Supertalent as a judge.

On 16 June 2009, she announced that she had been diagnosed with breast cancer, and had undergone surgery in May 2009. She finished post-op chemotherapy and is cancer free. In the summer of 2009, Real Madrid wanted to sell Rafael van der Vaart, but the player decided to stay in Madrid because Sylvie was undergoing cancer treatments there. A year later, upon his move to England, Rafael stated "She had a very serious illness and it is true that she had to be treated at the Clínica Quirón. Last season, they wanted me to leave but I couldn't leave for that reason. Now she is well and the only thing that happened was that Madrid wanted to sell and I wanted to get back to enjoying playing football, and Tottenham are a great team that are going to give me the football opportunities that I need."

In 2010, Sylvie admitted to having cheated on her husband, stating that Van der Vaart found out through emails that she was having an affair with a KLM airline pilot which she believed was the beginning of the end of their marriage. On 2 January 2013, Sylvie acknowledged their separation after he had struck her in front of their guests. Their divorce was finalized in December 2013. On 12 April 2017, she became engaged to Charbel Aouad but the couple separated in October 2017.