"I always felt like a failure" - Van Barneveld looks back on lonely childhood

Five-time world champion Raymond van Barneveld — a towering figure in Dutch darts for decades — has opened up about why his post-match interviews in recent years have so often carried a heavy, emotional tone. Speaking in a preview of the Dutch TV programme Sterren op het Doek, the 57-year-old reflects candidly on his childhood and how those early experiences shaped his behaviour throughout his career.

Van Barneveld has long been known not only for his achievements on stage but also for a string of anguished interviews after difficult defeats. Following his shock early exit at the 2019 World Championship against Darin Young, for instance, he spoke openly of self-hatred and feeling as though life had lost its meaning. He now says those reactions were rooted in deep-seated insecurity.

“I always felt like a failure,” Van Barneveld admits. He traces that feeling back to his formative years, describing a lonely upbringing without friends in the neighbourhood.

“I had no friends around me,” he says. “When you’re young and you have your mates, you learn things from each other — hanging out, going out, going to the cinema. All of that passed me by.”

Darts eventually became his escape and his validation. His rapid rise through the ranks changed the way people viewed him, but the self-doubt never fully disappeared — even as he racked up major titles.

“My whole childhood just slipped away, and nothing ever really worked out,” he says, before presenter Özcan Aykol interjects that setbacks are a normal part of growing up. Van Barneveld quickly counters: “Yes, but not everything, right?”

He recalls attending carpentry school yet being unable, as he puts it, to “hammer a nail into a wall”. “I always felt like a failure. Everything I touched fell apart. I could never do anything right the first time,” he says.

But with three darts in his hand, everything changed. Van Barneveld became a four-time BDO world champion before lifting the PDC World Championship trophy in 2007. Still, he concedes that poor results later in his career can stir up those long-buried feelings. “Then you slip back into that mindset — ‘See? You still can’t do anything,’” he says.

Van Barneveld returns to the World Darts Championship this year and is set to face Switzerland’s Stefan Bellmont on Wednesday, December 17. The full episode of Sterren op het Doek airs on Saturday.