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In “The Man with 1000 Kids,” a prolific sperm donor, Jonathan Jacob Meijer, takes the spotlight.
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It features families who used him as a donor and later found out how many children he had fathered.
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Meijer told Business Insider that he planned to take legal action against Netflix.
“The Man with 1000 Kids” tells the story of four couples and a single woman who slowly discover that their sperm donor is the father of hundreds of children.
The Netflix docuseries chronicles how Jonathan Jacob Meijer told those who used him as a donor that he had only helped a handful of families. But when parents in the Netherlands realized that their children born using sperm donors looked strangely the same, it became clear that this was not the case. It later emerged that he had donated sperm all over the world.
The families soon became fearful of the potential dangers to future generations if half-siblings unknowingly had children together.
A man identified as John, one half of a couple who used Meijer, says on the show: “We thought, ‘Oh fuck. What if these kids meet each other and maybe have a connection or fall in love, and they don’t know they’re related?’ That’s when the real panic started. That’s when we saw the real danger of this.”
Meijer was no longer allowed to donate sperm in the Netherlands
In April last year, Meijer was banned by a court in The Hague in his native Netherlands from donating sperm to fertility clinics after it emerged he had fathered more than 500 children, The Independent reported.
If he donates again, he risks a fine of 100,000 euros for each violation.
An anonymous sperm donor also alleged in the series that Meijer and another man, identified only as Leon, ran a website called “Longing for a Child” to try to conceive as many children as possible. The anonymous donor said Meijer and Leon mixed their sperm samples to play “sperm roulette” to see who the child would resemble.
In an email to Business Insider, Meijer denied that he managed the site.
“I never ran a website, there is no evidence for that. I placed my ad on that same website in the early years of my donation, 2008-2014,” he wrote. “What Leon did is unclear to me, I met him 4-5 times in my life, he passed away two years ago.”
Referring to Netflix, Meijer added: “I will be taking legal action for defamation, this is insane! I will be taking legal action not only for the mixing, but for some other claims as well.”
Netflix did not respond to a request for comment from BI.
Meijer still posts videos of himself traveling on YouTube
The docuseries details how Meijer traveled extensively for his work, which is why some of the mothers involved in the investigation were unable to speak to him in person when they discovered how many children had been conceived using his sperm samples.
He regularly posts videos on his YouTube channel about his thoughts on various topics including spirituality, traditional women, eating raw meat and his response to ‘The Man with 1000 Kids’.
On May 5, he posted a video from Tanzania, explaining that he had decided to leave the Netherlands because the country had become overpopulated and he wanted to be closer to nature.
In his most recent upload on Wednesday, Meijer was on a beach in Zanzibar, off the east coast of Africa, explaining that he had spent “over 50,000 hours” as a sperm donor until 2019, when he stopped donating to clinics.
Read the original article on Business Insider