Jerry Springer
Chantel Brink
Chantel Brink
November 23, 2022 ·  3 min read

Jerry Springer expresses remorse over his controversial talk show: ‘I just apologise’

Admit it, at some stage in our lives, we have all watched some form of reality TV and it either sparked an obsession where we couldn’t miss an episode or severe hate for what goes on behind the scenes. People tend to thrive on chaos – especially when it’s in the life of someone else.

With a successful run from 1991 to 2018, Jerry Springer has now come forward to apologize for his talk show, which has seen so many interesting people step through its doors. And what a show it was which was famous for on-stage fights, nudity, profanity, adultery, and incest.

The titles of various episodes of The Jerry Springer Show would today come across as clickbait with names like “I Married a Horse” and “I’m Happy I Cut Off My Legs”. So one can imagine, when the camera was rolling, all sorts of chaos ensued. It was only recently that Jerry appeared on David Yontef’s Behind the Velvet Rope podcast, coming clean about it all.

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78-Year-old Jerry Springer opened up about the series

I just apologise,” he said. “I’m so sorry. What have I done? I’ve ruined the culture. I hope hell isn’t that hot because I burn real easy. I’m very light-complected, and that kind of worries me,” he joked. The online scandal host went on to talk about his career before TV.

A politician in the ’70s, elected mayor of Cincinnati in 1977

After being mayor, I was offered the job to anchor the news for the NBC affiliate in Cincinnati, and I did that for 10 years,” he said on the podcast. He added that it “was a rational transition” to “go from politics to reporting to news to anchoring”.

There was never a thought in my mind growing up that I’d be in show business,” he said. “I mean, I’m a lawyer. I started out being a lawyer and worked for Bobby Kennedy. And, in other words, my background is political and legal.”

I was offered the job to anchor the news for the NBC affiliate in Cincinnati,” he continued, “and I did that for 10 years. And that was a rational transition, you go from politics to reporting to news to anchoring.” So naturally, the NBC affiliate company approached him to replace Phil Donahue at his retirement. “I was assigned to it as an employee,” he recalled, “and then all of a sudden the show took off.”

Read: Judge Judy remarried her husband in 1991 – together they raised 5 kids, 3 of whom are following in her tracks

Criticism followed Jerry Springer over the 27-year run

The thought of exploitation and excessive violence may cross one’s mind when thinking back to the show in its heyday and one wouldn’t be wrong. It was in 2002 that a woman was murdered nearly hours after the airing of an episode she appeared in. She spoke out on sleeping with her known-to-be violent ex-husband, unbeknown to his new wife. The couple was soon thereafter found to be guilty of her murder.

The chanting of “Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!” still haunts Springer to this day

In October of 2000 in an interview with Reuters, Jerry Springer openly admitted that “I would never watch my show. I’m not interested in it. It’s not aimed towards me. This is just a silly show, I was just a schmuck who got lucky”.

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Sources

  1. Why Jerry Springer Is Apologizing for The Jerry Springer Show.” EOnline. Alyssa Ray. November 14, 2022.
  2. Jerry Springer expresses remorse over his controversial talk show: ‘I just apologise’.” Independent UK. Tom Murray. November 2022.