René Klijn (

The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...

, September 8, 1962 –

September 5, 1993) was a Dutch singer and model. He became famous in 1992 for discussing the fact that he was an

HIV/AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual ...

patient in a controversial, but critically awarded episode of

Paul de Leeuw Paul Henri de Leeuw (born 26 March 1962) is a Dutch television comedian, singer and actor. De Leeuw gained national fame in the late eighties and early nineties with television shows for broadcasting company VARA. Though satire was only a part ...

's talk show ''De Schreeuw van De Leeuw''. In his final life year he scored a number one hit with the song " Mr. Blue".

Biography

He was a member of the boyband Bam-to-Bam-Bam. In the early 1990s he was diagnosed with

AIDS Human immunodeficiency virus infection and acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (HIV/AIDS) is a spectrum of conditions caused by infection with the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), a retrovirus. Following initial infection an individual m ...

, which he revealed to viewers in an episode of ''De Schreeuw van de Leeuw'' starring host

, broadcast on 28 November 1992. The episode was controversial because De Leeuw took the liberty to crack jokes about Klijn's illness, but at the same time it took away a lot of taboos and tension. Klijn was in charge of how the episode was supposed to look and invited friends and family members to come and speak, but also his medics. At the end of the episode they sang a duet, "Mr. Blue", a cover of the band Yazoo, which was also released as a single. It became a number one-hit in the Netherlands and the money was donated to the AIDS foundation. The episode itself won a Bronze

Rose d'Or The Rose d'Or ('Golden Rose') is an international awards festival in entertainment broadcasting and programming. The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) first acquired the Rose d’Or in 1961, when it was created by Swiss Television in the lakesi ...

Montreux Montreux (, , ; frp, Montrolx) is a Swiss municipality and town on the shoreline of Lake Geneva at the foot of the Alps. It belongs to the district of Riviera-Pays-d'Enhaut in the canton of Vaud in Switzerland, and has a population of approximat ...

. He died September 5, 1993, in The Hague from his disease. De Leeuw took his ashes with him on a trip to the United States, where he scattered the ashes from a boat, which was filmed on camera.

References

1962 births 1993 deaths Dutch male models Dutch people of Indonesian descent Musicians from The Hague 20th-century Dutch male singers AIDS-related deaths in the Netherlands {{Netherlands-singer-stub