Why 'The Jeremy Kyle Show' was cancelled: C4 to air exposé from former staff

He was once the king of daytime TV, but Jeremy Kyle's chat show was abruptly cancelled in 2019 following the suicide of a former guest.

Now, The Jeremy Kyle Show's former staff are speaking out on what it was really like to work on the notoriously controversial programme in an exposing new Channel 4 documentary, Jeremy Kyle Show: Death on Daytime.

Read more: Louise Minchin and her daughter speak out on terrifying stalking experience

ITV had been airing the series since 2005 which made a star of Kyle and his straight-talking, no-nonsense attitude to guests' problems and squabbles combined with the frequent use of a lie detector test and regular audience heckling and booing.

Former guests, staff and the show's viewers had voiced their concern during its run about the way people were dealt with while discussing personal issues, but the show was eventually taken off air on 10 May, 2019 - the day after guest Steve Dymond died from suicide.

He had recorded an episode of the show a week earlier where he hoped to prove he had not cheated on his ex partner, but the 63-year-old appeared to fail a lie detector test.

Read more: This Morning and Loose Women go off air amid security concerns

Dymond's episode did not air and the show was cancelled completely by ITV shortly afterwards.

In the two-part documentary set to begin on Channel 4 this Sunday, former employees of the Jeremy Kyle Show speak out on their experiences along with other guests who appeared on the chat show and their families.

According to The Independent, in the documentary one former employee talking about Dymond's death admits to the filmmakers: "I felt like I had blood on my hands. We felt like we had killed someone."

Others claim that they regularly had calls from guests threatening suicide who they then had to talk out of harming themselves.

Stories from those who worked in the production team include claims that they were expected to agitate guests ahead of them stepping out onto the studio stage so that they would argue in front of the cameras.

Last year, Kyle launched his new talkRADIO show by vowing to speak out about his time on the chat show and its axing after 15 years when he was legally able to.

Ahead of the radio show beginning, he had said: "Listen, I have been cancelled. In this world it seems now that unless you follow a certain path, you are labelled. You have to fight back."

Read more: The biggest TV controversies of 2021

Referring to The Jeremy Kyle Show ahead of Sunday's Channel 4 documentary, an ITV statement said: "The show had a dedicated guest welfare team of mental healthcare professionals. Guests were supported prior to filming, throughout filming and after filming.

"ITV does not accept the central allegation of this programme of a ‘bad culture’ within the production team. ITV would never condone any of its production staff misleading or lying to guests."

Jeremy Kyle Show: Death on Daytime begins on Sunday at 9pm on Channel 4.

For confidential emotional support contact The Samaritans at any time by calling 116 123 or emailing jo@samaritans.org

Watch: Jeremy Kyle says people should be allowed to ask and say 'what they want'