Yahoo News The Man with 1000 Kids on Netflix: Who is Jonathan Meijer and where is he now?
Netflix's latest shocking docu-series takes a look at the Dutch man who's thought to have fathered some 600 children worldwide.
Jonathan Jacob Meijer, 43, stood out to those on sperm donation websites thanks to his height and head of thick, blonde hair. But The Man With 1000 Kids, directed by Josh Allott and produced by Kathryn Taylor, hears from the mothers who are concerned for their children with the Dutch man.
The three-part series also investigates the shady parts of the fertility industry and unveils how some international fertility clinics continue to allow anonymous donations due to a lack of global regulations. We also discover similarly odd characters with sinister motives, as well as just how far they will go to put more children on the planet.
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In The Man with 1000 Kids, the call for Jonathan's accountability begins when one parent of a child conceived with his help figures out a curious number of half-siblings lived around town. Meanwhile, at Isala Fertility Centre, a doctor receives an anonymous email alleging that one of their donors had possibly fathered more than 150 children in the Netherlands.
The donor worked directly with families as well as donating to other banks, in violation of a signed agreement with Isala. As explained by clinical embryologist Dr. Max Curfs in the series, limits on sperm donation exist in order to protect the resulting children from the risk of consanguineous relationships, or unwitting incest.
“What happens psychologically to these children that have 700, 800, 900 brothers and sisters?” asked Kate, an Australian mother who found Jonathan through Denmark-based Cryos, the largest international sperm and egg bank in the world. “How are they psychologically going to be able to deal with this information?”
While Kate claims that every country has a limit on how many children a given sperm donor can father, Eve Wiley, a fertility fraud activist, says there’s no international limit. If a donor maxes out the number of children they can conceive in one country, international sperm banks like Cryos can simply send their donations to prospective parents in another country.
While sperm banks like Isala Fertility Center require donors not to work with other banks, there’s no way to enforce these guidelines, which allowed Jonathan to continue his global deception.
Who is Jonathan Jacob Meijer?
Jonathan is a Dutch man who runs his own YouTube channel, sharing his commentary on everything from wellbeing hacks, abortion and oppression. He's also uploaded videos of himself chowing down on raw meat.
He first began donating sperm in 2007 but claims to have stopped doing so for new recipients in 2019. He went by different names to donate sperm at times - including Ruud, Walter, and Maarten, according to Netflix Tudum. He claims to have worked in education while keeping up with his YouTube channel, which currently has just over 5,000 subscribers.
Patricia, a friend of Jonathan's who appears in The Man with 1000 Kids, said he had seven siblings of his own and added that as a young adult, he struggled to find his own identity, cycling through various looks and jobs
Fertility fraud expert Eve calculates that, based on how often Jonathan donated, he could potentially be the father of up to 3,000, according to Netflix Tudum. Last April, he was ordered by a Dutch court to stop donating sperm and ordered to contact clinics asking them to destroy samples of his semen.
The decision came after a civil case started by a foundation representing the interests of donor children and Dutch parents who had used him as a donor. They argued that Jonathan's continued donations violated the right to a private life of his donor children, whose ability to form romantic relationships is hampered by fears of accidental incest and inbreeding.
Where is Jonathan Meijer now?
Jonathan is still maintaining his YouTube channel, but is currently based in Zanzibar, East Africa, according to his latest videos.
Director Josh told Netflix Tudum: “I did meet [Jonathan] in order to speak to him about being in the documentary. We approached him a number of times to be interviewed and gave him a right to reply at the end. He refused to comment on any of the allegations in the series.”
However, since the Netflix docu-series' release, Jonathan took to his YouTube channel to address the documentary. He also spoke on BBC Radio 4 Women's Hour on Wednesday, the day after the docu-series was released, where he said the title was 'misleading' - "It should be 'the sperm donor who helped families conceive with 550 children" he said.
He added: "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."
Natalie Hill, the documentary's executive producer, told the programme: "I've spent the last four years speaking to families who have been impacted by Jonathan's lies. I've personally spoken to 45 or 50 families. Fifty families made impact statements to the court about his lies and pleaded with the judge that he stop.
"So this continued platform for Jonathan to talk about it being a handful of women is completely untrue."
The Man with 1000 Kids is now streaming on Netflix.
