Chapter 3
The acclaim had come so quickly ten years ago. One day she was periodically giving tips about wine on the morning show, and the next, she had a show of her own. Bente had been unprepared for what came next.
The attention had been unexpected; she was even more surprised by the hatred that came her way as her fame grew.
It started with the odd dig here and there, nasty comments on her YouTube videos, which gained an avalanche of new subscribers after she began to appear on TV.
These were followed by a few unpleasant headlines in magazines and gossip columns concerning how she came across on-screen, and some poisonous remarks on the TV station’s Facebook page.
I think the other wine expert is better was a common thread.
Needless to say, any expert these people preferred was always a man.
However, Bente took this all in stride; the world of wine was a male-dominated industry, and she had grown a thick skin over the years.
Once she and the celebrity baker Henrik Eklund became a couple, the tone of the comments and articles softened, as if having a boyfriend made her more or less okay.
But the relationship ended, Bente was blamed for allegedly cheating on Henrik, and everything came crashing down following the “dine and dash” incident—a misunderstanding that ultimately ended Bente’s TV career.
She had visited a restaurant with some friends—influencers and TV personalities who occasionally got together.
Fame had brought her these new acquaintances—a group of women who met up for dinner or lunch, hung out in bars.
After their outings, everyone always posted fantastic pictures on social media, accompanied by breathlessly enthusiastic captions.
Dinner with Bente Hammar, such an energy boost!
It had been a long evening. They ate and drank, ordered more food, more bottles of wine. High-quality wines, and the final check had added up to considerably more than the monthly food budget for a family with three children. (A sensationalist gossip site had later drawn the comparison.)
They had been celebrating the premiere of a new television show on which one of the other girls cooked and Bente offered advice about wine to accompany the dishes. After the restaurant, they moved on to a bar, then to a club where someone in the group was on the VIP list.
It wasn’t until the following morning, when they were chatting in their WhatsApp group and trying to work out who had paid for what and who owed money to someone else, that they realized they had left the restaurant without paying.
It had been a chaotic departure, with a couple of the girls chatting to a news anchor, Bente visiting the bathroom, and the other girl trying to find a cab.
Bente had immediately tried to call the restaurant, but they didn’t open until the afternoon.
She went to their Facebook page to try to resolve the matter straightaway, knowing from her own experience within the industry that an unpaid check that big could easily lead to the involvement of the police.
Above all, she was ashamed and embarrassed.
This situation was absolutely not okay, and she clicked on the page, feeling sure that the matter could be quickly resolved.
Unfortunately, the restaurant had already posted about the incident.
Thanks to the four girls who did a runner without paying the check yesterday evening.
Our staff worked hard serving you three courses, wine, and Champagne, and you didn’t even leave a tip for the waitress.
Unfortunately the table wasn’t booked in advance, so we don’t have your names—but if this is you, please get in touch.
Shit. With a lump in her stomach, Bente clicked on the post with the intention of commenting, but then realized that it would be better to send a DM rather than expose her name and picture. That was when she noticed the number of reactions below the post.
A thousand. Jesus. And then the comments. Hundreds. And just as many shares.
She knew that certain posts could go viral on social media, like those of cute kittens or babies laughing, but she had never heard of a “dine and dash” going viral before. As she tried to take it all in, the numbers kept on going up, with the original post getting shared over and over again.
She broke out in a sweat.
She quickly typed a message to the restaurant, saying that it was her party that had forgotten to pay. She couldn’t help going back to the comments to see what people were saying. It wasn’t long before she saw that someone had identified her.
I was sitting at the next table! They were so noisy, ordering lots of food and giving the staff a hard time. I recognized one of them, it was Bente Hammar, that woman who talks about wine on TV.
Bente thought back to their behavior. She always made a point of being pleasant to the staff, and she had taken up the battle over tips in the past. She thought the Swedes were very poor in that department, and she had said so publicly on more than one occasion.
Admittedly her party had done the wrong thing in forgetting to pay, but surely they hadn’t also been rude to the waiters and waitresses?
Bente had always caught their eye and thanked them properly, wanting them to know that they were seen and appreciated.
She knew that her companions could be a little casual toward the staff, but she didn’t think anyone had been impolite.
Someone named Lizette Jansson had replied to the comment that identified Bente. What a leech, when restaurant owners are already barely scraping by. She probably thought she could eat there for free! Stuck-up bitch! And she cheated on Henrik Eklund. He deserves someone better.
The first stone had been cast.
Next was someone by the name of Peter: Can’t stand her on TV, smug bitch, not surprised that she ran out without paying.
Bente watched in real time as a tsunami of hatred poured down on her. All she could do was sit there, utterly powerless.
The thread was completely out of control now, the number of comments spiraling.
If this were medieval times, there wouldn’t have been much left of her stoned body.
As Bente was scrolling, the comments were switched off.
Presumably someone at the restaurant didn’t like their Facebook page being used as a platform for a lynch mob.
They hadn’t replied to her message, so as soon as the restaurant opened she called and explained as apologetically as she could that they had simply forgotten about the bill. The person on the other end of the line said curtly that it would be fine for her to come in and pay.
Looking like the main character in an espionage novel, she went down there dressed in a baseball cap and sunglasses, and with the collar of her coat turned up to hide her face.
She paid and apologized once more. Fifteen minutes later the restaurant deleted the post, and Bente let out a sigh of relief. The whole thing had blown over.
However, later that evening when she was recovering on the sofa with the new novel by her favorite writer, Valérie Perrin—Bente liked to read French authors in order to keep up her language skills after having lived there—she received a message from one of her friends.
Have you seen this?
There was a link to a blind item on the entertainment page of one of the tabloid papers.
Female presenter leaves luxury restaurant without paying check
At a Stockholm restaurant, a TV star and her friends consumed food and drink to the value of thousands of kronor. Then they left—without paying.
“This could definitely constitute fraud,” says a lawyer with expertise in this kind of crime.
It all began like a normal restaurant visit. The TV star and her friends arrived at the classic Stockholm venue at about 7:00 p.m.
“I recognized her right away,” says a diner who was there when the group arrived.
According to a guest who sat at an adjoining table, the four women were quiet at first. They started with a bottle of Dom Pérignon 2009 and enjoyed two dozen oysters with the vintage Champagne before ordering the rest of their meal.
“We are of course proud of our entire menu, but this party ordered our most spectacular dishes. French toast with truffle and a 63-degree egg to start, followed by beef tartare on lobster for the main course. They chose to have the beef topped with Kalix caviar, and after studying the dessert menu went for a sorbet made from Italian lemons and specially aged vodka,” says Fredrik Larsson, the restaurant owner.
The check came to 12,326 kronor, excluding tips. At this point in the evening, the party disappeared without anyone paying.
A picture of the check was included, with the caption A vulgar order.
The fact that Bente had since paid was irrelevant; the budding disaster was now a reality.
On top of everything else, the rumors about her alleged infidelity had resurfaced.
And in the eyes of the public, the fact that she had previously stood up for restaurant workers, their pay and conditions, and said that everyone should leave a tip of at least 15 percent didn’t help; it simply made her a hypocrite.
The following day an “expert”—it wasn’t clear in what field this person’s expertise actually lay—publicly stated that behaviors such as kleptomania and infidelity were often linked, and that these problems frequently revealed narcissistic tendencies, as in this particular case.
Before long the writers were naming Bente in the articles, since everyone knew she was the one being talked about anyway.
Her misstep hadn’t led to any major headlines—she wasn’t that famous.
However, the attention was enough to cause the hatred that previously had only seeped out to come gushing forth.
Lies now mixed with wild speculation in the comment boxes, and Bente realized that the truth didn’t actually matter to these people.
They wanted her to be a horrible person.
In that context, the facts were irrelevant.
She couldn’t stop reading.
Her mother and sister noticed the effect it was having on her, and eventually persuaded her to take a break from the spotlight. TV24 didn’t object.
Even though her mother and sister were standing by, ready to support her, Bente had rented out her apartment, packed two suitcases, and taken the ferry to the island of Gotland and Aunt Lydia—the only member of the family who placed no value whatsoever on Bente’s activities, and who never questioned her ambitions in the world of TV.
Lydia’s husband had left when their son, Uno, was a baby, and mother and child had spent a great deal of time with Bente’s family since then.
Bente’s father had later died and her mother had spent some time in jail; during that time, Lydia had been the natural support to Bente and Hanna, and over the years, Bente, her mother, Hanna, Lydia, and her cousin Uno had become a close family unit.
By the time of Bente’s crisis, Lydia and Uno lived on Gotland, and moving into her aunt’s house just outside the Visby town wall, being spoiled with Indian teas and home-baked cakes and cookies, and being called sweetheart had helped enormously.
Bente had stayed with Lydia for almost six months.
During that time she had carried on posting her wine tips on YouTube on a weekly basis, even though she was no longer especially popular.
A few mean comments slipped through, but eventually people grew tired of the scandal and only a few loyal followers remained.
When Bente returned to Stockholm, she moved in with her sister, Hanna, in the enormous apartment on Maria’s Square.
Her sister’s fortune could be compared to a digital version of Scrooge McDuck’s bank vault.
Hanna was then already supporting their mother, who had served her jail time and taken early retirement from her accounting work, and was happy to provide Bente with food and somewhere to live while she looked for work as a sommelier.
Eventually, Bente got the job at Rendezvous and, in spite of Hanna’s protests, started to pay rent.
Bente gratefully accepted the emotional support, however.
Living with her mother and sister, spending time with them every day, reminded her that she was not alone.
The break in her TV career had already lasted three years. By now, Bente had accepted the truth.
The world of TV had forgotten all about her.