Documentary reveals the real world of The Jerry Springer Show

Jerry Springer led where Jeremy Kyle followed…

In a Netflix premium two-part series, the jaw-dropping story of The Jerry Springer Show will be revealed as the story has never been told before. The former mayor of Cincinnati rose to fame as the host of the show which saw guests sit on a stage and air their various issues in front of an excited audience. Jerry presided over the chaos in the US from 1991 until 2018. The tabloid talk show gained popularity for its outrageous moments, such as onstage fights. It was the inspiration behind similar shows such as The Jeremy Kyle Show in the UK.

The forthcoming look at life behind the scenes of the show will tell, with extraordinary first-hand testimony and revelations from show insiders, how the production became one of the most successful – yet controversial – on stateside television.

The series explores how this daytime talk show became one of the biggest and most outrageous TV hits of the nineties, with screenings in several other countries including on British TV. But behind the entertaining facade lay some darker truths.

As the documentary hears from the producers and ex-guests of The Jerry Springer Show, a murkier picture begins to emerge of the destruction it caused, raising renewed questions about who was responsible, and how far things should go in the name of entertainment.

After a lukewarm start when the topics were mainly political, the talk show underwent a revamp in the mid-1990s and became known for its controversial subject matter with guests thrashing out the likes of incest and adultery in front of a baying studio crowd.

The stateside show inspired an opera, which debuted in London in 2003 and was later staged in various U.S. cities, again to much controversy. Jerry Springer died aged 79 in April of 2023.

Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action arrives on Netflix on January 7th next year.