‘I’ll remember this for a long time’: Antwerp mayor caught wearing no trousers during interview

Antwerp Mayor Bart de Wever during the interview, with his reflection in the background

Credit: Telegraph

The mayor of Antwerp suffered a pandemic wardrobe malfunction during an interview when he failed to notice that an unfortunately placed mirror revealed he was wearing no trousers.

Bart De Wever, the mayor of Belgium’s second-largest city, dressed the part for a radio interview, broadcast online from his home, in a smart, checked shirt. But he stopped short of wearing trousers, mistakenly believing his lower half was safely out of shot of his phone’s camera.

Unfortunately for Mr De Wever, a mirror behind him revealed his sartorial choices to viewers tuning into Flemish broadcaster Radio 2’s morning show.

It took until the four-minute mark of the short interview on Saturday for the presenter to gently break the news to the mayor.

Mr De Wever didn't realise that his bare legs could be seen in the mirror's reflection

Credit: Telegraph

“You are wearing a very nice shirt, probably you donned it especially for us. But under that shirt, could it be that you are there in your underwear?” Kim Debrie asked Mr De Wever, who heads the Flemish separatist party, N-VA.

“How do you know that?” De Wever said, before realising the problem. “I’m probably sitting in front of a mirror. I had not taken that into account. The year begins with a particularly embarrassing moment, I’ll remember this for a long time.”

Georges-Louis Bouchez, Mr De Wever’s counterpart in the French-speaking liberal party, cheekily wished the mayor a happy New Year in a tweet that also included a picture of a pair of boxer shorts decked out in the Belgian flag.

Mr De Wever is not the first political figure to be caught trouser-less. Irish MEP Luke Flanagan accidentally set his iPad in portrait mode during a meeting in June that included budget Commissioner Johannes Hahn while only wearing what appeared to be underpants.

Flanagan later insisted that they were running shorts and that he had just returned home from a run when the meeting was scheduled to begin. The Irishman also quipped that his legs had aroused such immense interest on social media that he should get them insured.