Giel Beelen

Michiel Antonius Adrianus "Giel" Beelen (born 25 May 1977) is a Dutch radio DJ and presenter from Haarlem, Noord-Holland, working primarily for public broadcaster VARA. Rising to fame as a shock jock, Beelen was known for hosting his breakfast show GI:EL, on NPO 3FM from 2004 to 2016 and NPO Radio 2 from 2020 to 2022.

In 2014, Beelen achieved a Guinness World Record for the longest radio DJ marathon ever, lasting 198 hours of non-stop broadcasting, after having improved the world record for the longest duration continuous crowd surfing in 2011.

Other shows Beelen presented were the Friday night show 'FreakNacht' from 1:00 to 4:00 am, as well as the extreme participation TV show Factor giel and a TV talk show called GielTV. In one part he and the interviewed person are naked (but largely this amounts to showing the bare shoulders).

Career

From an early age, Beelen was determined to become a disc jockey. When he was just a little kid, he made himself a mock radio station to pretend he was a dj. After starting at a local Haarlem broadcasting company, presenting a show for kids, he soon moved to Radio 10 Gold and later to Radio Noordzee to work as an engineer.

In 1997 Beelen moved to the AVRO at Radio 3FM, where he hosted a show during night time. In 2000, he received fellatio live on air from a prostitute that he called into the studio. In January 2001, the KRO fired him from 3FM because he said that Mein Kampf was the most impressive book that he knew. Then, he worked as a presenter for BNNVARA. After September 11, he would do shows in the streets dressed as an Arab with a microphone in his turban. However, he was also fired from VARA in 2001 after asking listeners to send letters with flour to KRO, during the 2001 anthrax scare, as revenge for firing him earlier that year.