Festival, and she presented (The black list) about black music annually. News broadcaster NOS described her as the face of Radio 6. Sylvana's Choice was canceled in 2010, but she later received a Tuesday evening slot for a show called Soul & Jazz. She permanently left Radio 6 at the start of 2014, while remaining the host of North Sea Jazz Festival coverage and on television. Next to her work for Radio 6, Simons started appearing as a recurring sidekick on talk show in 2012, and she participated in the celebrity dancing contest Strictly Come Dancing, part of the same franchise as Dancing with the Stars. She was coupled with professional dancer Redmond Valk, who was later replaced by Aerjen Mooijweer because of an injury, and they were the season's runners-up. In late 2012, Simons presented the three-episode music series Puro 43 Music Sessions on RTL 8. She later also worked as a public speaking and personal leadership coach as co-owner of The House of Power. Simons participated in the theater tour LULverhalen (Dick stories), in which women talked about an either literal or figurative dick, in 2015. She was uninvited after she had talked about her opposition to – companion with blackface – during her first performance, causing some audience members to walk out of the performance. Political career DENK (2016) Simons has told that she decided to publicly speak out against institutional racism following a May 2015 incident and the reactions it had brought about, which included fierce criticism on social media: in an episode of , presenter Martin Šimek used the word (darkies) in a discussion about immigrants, causing Simons to question him on his usage of the word. The described 2015 as the year in which Simons had become the figurehead of the Dutch black community because of this event and her opposition to , whom she had protested at the national arrival of in Meppel. She joined the left-wing minority rights party DENK on 18 May 2016, and it was simultaneously announced that she would run for member of the House of Representatives in the 2017 general election. DENK had been founded the year before by Turkish-born Dutch politicians Tunahan Kuzu and Selçuk Öztürk after they had left the Labour Party. Simons had been asked by Kuzu to join the party, and she also started serving as a communications advisor. Simons indicated an interest in