Singers Kristel, Karin and Josje are pulling out and are talent-spotting to find suitable successors. Pippi-Lotte let her friends and sister twist her arm to give it a try. ‘When my sister brought it up I thought, I’ll sign up and see how far I get. It was more as a joke, really, but I was one of the 800 girls out of the 6000 who were invited for the first round. In the end I was even one of the 100 girls who got to sing for the jury.
While not exactly a fan of the girl band, Pippi-Lotte does enjoy their music. ‘It cheers me up. I don’t listen to their songs every day but I have always liked them. Otherwise I certainly wouldn’t have auditioned.’ The auditions took place before the summer holidays. Each singer had to convince not only K3 but also a jury of children, fathers, mothers and grandparents. ‘I wasn’t nervous until I had to go on. The audience was much closer than I had expected and I heard them asking each other, ‘Shall we let her go through?’
In the end she got through to the next round. She got the children and their fathers on her side very quickly but it was only at the end of the chorus of ‘Heyah Mama’ that the grandparents were convinced. The moment when the door opened to the professional jury felt like a dream, says Pippi-Lotte. ‘All the lights and cameras, it was totally overwhelming. I really wondered where I was.
The jury soon asked about her name, but Pippi-Lotte had seen that coming. ‘People had been talking about that all day.’ The jury was not entirely positive. And the 19-year-old student sees what they meant when they said she could do with a bit more oomph. ‘I saw how I was hobbling up and down, so I get why they said that.’ But the jury still thought Pippi-Lotte was good enough to go through to the bootcamp. How she has fared there we’ll hear sometime in the near future.
(K3 zoekt K3 is on SBS6 on Friday night)