Silvana Hildegard "Sylvana" Simons (born 31 January 1971) is a Surinamese-born Dutch politician and former television presenter. She has been a member of the House of Representatives since 2021 on behalf of BIJ1, an egalitarian anti-racist party founded by Simons in 2016. She was born in Suriname and moved to the Netherlands while an infant. She was a dancer in the Amsterdam nightlife scene before becoming a VJ for the new music channel TMF in 1995. Simons left four years later to join SBS Broadcasting, where she presented reality television series (2000). She subsequently spent almost a decade at RTL Nederland, hosting the first few seasons of (2001–05) about home buying and the Saturday evening show Dancing with the Stars (2005–07). Starting in 2009, Simons worked some years in public broadcasting as a radio presenter on Radio 6 and for the association NPS. She transitioned to politics in 2016, when she joined minority rights party DENK. Her career change followed her questioning of a term which she deemed racially insensitive during talk show the previous year. Her speaking out against institutional racism – and especially blackfaced companion – caused fierce criticism on social media platforms and racist remarks and threats. Simons left DENK after seven months to establish her own political party called Artikel 1, which was later renamed BIJ1. She did not win a seat in the 2017 general election, but she was elected to the Amsterdam municipal council the following year. Simons became the first black parliamentary leader in Dutch history following her election to the House of Representatives in 2021. Early life and education Simons was born on 31 January 1971 in the Surinamese capital of Paramaribo to Wilfred Hugo Leeuwin (born 1928) and Roline Yvonne Kerk (born 1945). She was raised without her siblings even though her father and her mother had fifteen children and one child, respectively, from previous relationships. The family came to the Netherlands when Simons was aged one and a half and lived in the Amsterdam neighborhoods Kinkerbuurt and Osdorp. She moved to the North Holland city of Hoorn another ten years later, growing up in its neighborhood Grote Waal. Her father worked as a bookkeeper for an insurance company, while her mother was employed by IBM. In her childhood, Simons rode horses and danced. She had started dancing lessons at the age of seven and later did preparatory training in Amsterdam