Singer Borsato declines all performances after acquittal in child sex abuse case

Marco Borsato will not perform at any point in the coming year, his management said Saturday, days after a court in Utrecht acquitted the singer of sexually assaulting a 15-year-old girl.

The announcement came in response to an invitation from André Rieu, the violinist, who had publicly expressed interest in having Borsato appear as a guest artist during his summer concerts on the Vrijthof in Maastricht.

“Marco will not perform in the coming year,” his management told ANP. The decision follows a verdict that closed a yearslong investigation into accusations that Borsato had sexually assaulted the daughter of the woman who chaired his fan club. The offenses were alleged to have taken place at his home, at the girl’s home and in dressing rooms of The Voice of Holland between September 2014 and January 2015.

On Thursday, the Utrecht court ruled that prosecutors had failed to prove the allegations with sufficient certainty. The Public Prosecution Service (OM) had demanded five months in prison, arguing that Borsato touched the girl’s thighs, breasts and vagina, both over and under her clothes, and that he abused the position of trust created by her seeing him as a father figure. “He touched her in intimate areas where he should never have,” the prosecutor said in court, adding that “sexual abuse is never the fault of a child, never.”

Borsato denied all wrongdoing. He testified that he treated the girl “like my own child” and that she viewed him as a father figure. “She often came to sit on my lap. That attitude never changed, not even in her teenage years,” he said. He called her “enthusiastic, but very impressionable,” and described himself as a “warm-blooded, cuddly person” who liked to snuggle, “as is customary in Italian families,” insisting that she would have corrected him if his behavior crossed a boundary.

Judges said the case file raised questions about how the complaint was prepared and what influence others may have had on the girl’s statement. “The court cannot determine precisely how this occurred,” they said. The ruling also noted that her allegations were “not always specific,” and that some events she described could not be placed clearly within the charged period, which ended before she turned 16 in January 2015.

One allegation — that she was forced to touch the singer’s genitals — allegedly occurred when she was 17, falling outside the scope of the indictment. The court emphasized that it did not intend to cast doubt on her story, but said prosecutors had not met the legal standards required for a conviction. It remains possible for the OM to appeal.

During the trial, Borsato had already said he did not know whether he would ever perform again. He told the court that he had not “touched a microphone since 2019.” He said: “I can’t do it. The desire and the urge to sing are gone. I don’t know whether I will ever again be able to practice my profession, even if the court acquits me.”