Sylvana Simons

Sylvana Simons
Simons in 2020
Member of the House of Representatives
In office 31 March 2021 – 5 December 2023
Member of the Amsterdam municipal council
In office 29 March 2018 – 5 November 2020[1]
Succeeded by	Jazie Veldhuyzen
Personal details
Born	Silvana Hildegard Simons[2][3] (1971-01-31) 31 January 1971 (age 53) Paramaribo, Suriname
Political party	BIJ1[a] (2016–present)
Other political affiliations	DENK (2016)
Spouse	Frank van Hoorn ​ ​ (m. 2003; div. 2006)​
Children	2
Relatives	Kenneth Leeuwin (half-brother)
Occupation	Politician television presenter VJ dancer
Known for	Dancing with the Stars, De bus, TV makelaar
Signature
^ Known as Artikel 1 (Article 1) until 2017.

Silvana Hildegard "Sylvana" Simons^[a] (Dutch pronunciation: [sɪlˈvaːnaː ˈsimɔns]; born 31 January 1971) is a Surinamese-born Dutch politician and former television presenter. She has served as a member of the House of Representatives since 2021 on behalf of BIJ1, an egalitarian anti-racist party founded by Simons in 2016.

She was born in Suriname and moved to the Netherlands while an infant. She was a dancer in the Amsterdam nightlife scene before becoming a VJ for the new music channel TMF in 1995. Simons left four years later to join SBS Broadcasting, where she presented reality television series De bus (2000). She subsequently spent almost a decade at RTL Nederland, hosting the first few seasons of TV makelaar (2001–05) about home buying and the Saturday evening show Dancing with the Stars (2005–07). Starting in 2009, Simons worked some years in public broadcasting as a radio presenter on Radio 6 and for the association NPS.

She transitioned to politics in 2016, when she joined minority rights party DENK. Her career change followed her questioning of a term which she deemed racially insensitive during talk show De wereld draait door the previous year. Her speaking out against institutional racism – and especially Sinterklaas's blackfaced companion Zwarte Piet – caused fierce criticism on social media platforms and racist remarks and threats. Simons left DENK after seven months to establish her own political party called Artikel 1, which was later renamed BIJ1. She did not win a seat in the 2017 general election, but she was elected to the Amsterdam municipal council the following year. Simons became the first black parliamentary leader in Dutch history following her election to the House of Representatives in 2021.

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