Entertainment

Searching for Marlotte is back and this is when

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Searching for Marlotte is back and this is when
A friend of mine really listens to every podcast available on the internet. Every time I talk to her, she starts again about a new bizarre story. All she wants to do is talk endlessly about her latest fascination: “How do you come up with this?” or “How does someone get so deeply entangled in this?” Half the time I can’t relate much. I’m simply not such a podcast fanatic as she is. But at the end of 2025, I still remember it vividly. At that time, everyone was captivated by the Zembla podcast Searching for Marlotte. And of course, I was too. I was immediately hooked and listened in one go to how Annika passionately talked about a girl who never really existed. For the first time, I understood exactly why people can become so obsessed with a podcast. I wanted to talk about it with everyone, and the best part was: almost no one had missed this piece of investigative journalism. And exactly that feeling we can now experience again. The crazy story is getting a second part.

A recap of Searching for Marlotte

Just a little refresher, in case you forgot what psychology student Annika went through. In 2020, she worked at the Child Helpline, where she came into contact with a seriously ill girl named Marlotte. She was supposed to be in the hospital, without parents looking after her, with quite a heavy backstory. Annika went against the rules and slowly started to build a phone friendship with her.

But within the first minutes of the podcast, the plot twist follows: Marlotte does not exist. So who had Annika been in contact with all this time? After podcast maker Lizzy Diercks sifted through a huge amount of information, it turned out that behind the account was an adult woman, known in the podcast as Roos. She had been deceiving Annika for years with made-up stories, screenshots, and medical documents. In the last episode, Roos is even confronted with this — even though you probably hadn’t forgotten that.

What we can expect from part two

The aftermath of the five-part podcast was significant. Not only did it seem that all of the Netherlands was talking about it for weeks, but the Child Helpline also stated that they were “shocked” by the story. However, Roos was ultimately not prosecuted, as the bar for a conviction for psychological abuse is high. But the more people listened to the podcast, the more new stories emerged.

And that’s exactly what the two new episodes – which will be released on June 2 on NPO Luister – will delve into. Because it seems that Roos may have created more victims. The sequel also further explores the bizarre phenomenon of completely fabricated identities and fictitious lives.

But for now, there is already a bonus episode online, in which the creators go deeper into the story during the NPO Luister Podcast Festival, addressing the criticism and answering many questions from the audience. I, of course, listened to it immediately and knew right away that I would discuss this extensively with my podcast-obsessed friend. A kind of warm-up for the hours-long conversations that we will undoubtedly have once the new episodes of Searching for Marlotte are online. I can’t wait.

Image: @chloelecareux SOURCE: NPO