Not Erik Van Looy, but BV was asked for the first time to present the ‘world’s smartest person’

Eric Van Lowe was at the ATV studio to talk about his in-room show “Addicted,” which begins February 3. In between, the TV face revealed that he wasn’t asked, but someone else was asked to present “The Smartest Person in the World” in 2004. “I’ve never told you this before,” Van Lowe said. “But when I asked the chiefs 19 years ago if it didn’t work for me, they were actually going to call you.” That “you” is Joe de Porter, who was also in the studio on Sunday presenting his new book, The Last Queen.

De Poorter had already been called, he told in turn, but he declined the offer out of fear. “It was already a fairly popular program, but I didn’t want it to become less of a footprint than it did at the time,” says de Porter. “This was one of my least important decisions.”

Although the announcer says that he does not regret much. “I ended up doing really well, because I could choose between that and go to VTM to do a lot of other programs out there.”