Netflix has been on a roll releasing titillating documentaries recently. One of the latest documentary series to capture audiences’ attention is Man With 1,000 Kids — a series about a serial sperm donator named Jonathan Jacob Meijer. However, after the doco hit the streaming platform, Meijer has clapped back at the claim that he’s fathered thousands of kiddos.
What is The Man With 1,000 Kids about?
In case you haven’t heard of the doco, The Man With 1,000 Kids explores the lives of families who have conceived children using Meijer’s sperm — and now feel like they’ve been hoodwinked. It calls into question the ethics of serial donation and questions whether Meijer’s actions were all legal.
What does Jonathan Meijer think about the doco?
Meijer — who is also a Dutch content creator — took to his YouTube page to discuss the title of the series, slamming the number of kids that the doco claims he’s fathered in the title.
“I don’t know where they get this number, I don’t know where they base it on. So, somehow they manage to magically add 450 children to my records,” he said.
“Already I think the title is sensationalising and misleading because the man with 1,000 children, should be in reality, the sperm donor who helped conceive families voluntarily with 550 children.”
Meijer is clear that he had nothing to do with the creation of the documentary, and claimed that the series was originally going to be named The Fertility Fraudster.
“That was not a title I can work with,” he said.
Speaking to the BBC, Meijer implied that Netflix was twisting the story.
“I think Netflix did a great job at selecting five families [who are unhappy] out of the 225 families that I’ve helped, and they [the other families] will definitely tell you something else,” he said during an interview with BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour.
However, executive producer of the doco Natalie Hill, claims she’s spoken to “45 to 50 families” who have been “impacted by Jonathan’s lies”.
How long has Jonathan Meijer been donating for?
Meijer has been a donor for 17 years, making public and private donations around the world. While he’s been pretty open about his pursuits as a donor on YouTube, many women claim he has not been entirely honest about how many children he has fathered.
In another video, he claims that he’s spent over 50,000 hours being a donor. And no, he doesn’t mean he’s spent 50,000 jerking it, he’s referring to his travel and time spent with clients too.
As for his motivations? He believes it is a gallant pursuit.
“It seemed like something very small with a big impact, enormous impact and still the donor is in the background,” he said
“He’s not getting awards, or fame, or money, and I found that very appealing. These men do something without wanting something in return. That, to me, felt very noble.”
Back in 2017, Meijer was banned from donating sperm in the Netherlands after it emerged that he had fathered over 102 children through donations he made 11 donations to clinics around the country.
Interestingly, it’s not the first time Netflix has been criticised for misleading information in its content. Most recently, the streamer was sued by a woman named Fiona Harvey, who claimed to be the real-life inspiration behind the character of Martha in the drama series Baby Reindeer after the series was marketed as a “true story” rather than being inspired by a true story.
