Who Is ‘The Man With 1,000 Kids?’
The Man With 1,000 Kids has viewers reeling trying to figure out who the Netflix documentary is about. The subject of the docuseries is Jonathan Jacob Meijer, a Dutch YouTube personality, who is a serial sperm donor. Allegedly, he has donated enough of his own “product” to father 500 to 1,000 children around the world. The series highlights the impact his donations have made on the families and children of his devious efforts. Keep reading to learn more about who Jonathan Meijer is.
Jonathan Meijer Thought He Was Doing A Good Thing
The Man With 1,000 Kids premiered on Netflix on July 3. The subject of the docuseries, Jonathan Meijer, has claimed that he spent up to 50,000 hours in sperm donation clinics over the span of 15 years.
“It seemed like something very small with a big impact, enormous impact, and still the donor is in the background,” he said about his donations. “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.”
Jonathan Meijer is a former civics teacher, crypto consultant, and mail carrier. He has opened up about what led him to begin to donate sperm. While he was in school to become a teacher, one of his classmates told him he was infertile. This allegedly inspired him to start donating sperm
Meijer himself comes from a large family. He also noted that he doesn’t have any family history of illness, so he thought that donating sperm would be a good thing to do for others.
Why Was Meijer Banned From Donating Sperm?
He was first banned from donating sperm by the Dutch Society of Obstetrics and Gynecology in the Netherlands in 2017. By then, he had already fathered 102 babies, which is well above the Dutch legal limit of 25 children. Although he was banned there, he continued to make sperm donations at clinics abroad. He continued to lie to clinics and potential parents about the number of children he fathered.
Jonathan Meijer has been accused of deceiving parents and donation clinics. “I want to do something meaningful with my life,” he has said of his donations. “Yes, I lied to the women. That was wrong. I wanted to help them.”
You may be wondering how Meijer’s scheme was found out and eventually turned into the documentary The Man With 1,000 Kids. Some of the mothers met by chance and recognized similar features in their children. Eventually, more than 150 parents connected on the internet and then contacted the Donorkind Foundation for assistance.
The Donorkind Foundation is an organization that focuses on the rights of kids conceived through sperm donation. They help donor children trace their roots and the organization was alerted to Meijer’s donations after receiving more than 30 calls in one week from concerned mothers.
They teamed up with Donorkind to file a civil suit against Meijer, alleging that he violated the rights of the children and the families. “All these parents are now confronted with the fact that the children in their family are part of a huge kinship network, with hundreds of half-siblings, which they did not choose,” the court said in their ruling.
Where Is The Man With 1,000 Kids Now?
Estimates for how many children Jonathan Meijer actually has fathered vary. The Man With 1,000 Kids places that number closer to 1K, while others place the estimate around 500. On top of the 100+ kids he has fathered in the Netherlands, he also has children in Australia, Denmark, Germany, Hungary, Mexico, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, and the United States.
He claims that he stopped donating sperm in 2019. While he does have a relationship with some of the kids, he has noted that he doesn’t have a close relationship with most and none at all with other children. He previously said that they feel more like “nephews and nieces” to him, otherwise it would be too much for him emotionally.
Now, the subject of The Man With 1,000 Kids spends a lot of his time traveling the world. He has denounced the Netflix documentary, despite claiming that he hasn’t seen it and refusing to play a role in its production.
“I don’t know much about it because I didn’t participate in it,” he said in a clip in June. “It’s what they think about me and what others say about me. I was right in not participating for myself, personally, because they first wanted to call it The Fertility Fraudster. That’s not a title I can work with.”
He also claimed that he only knows of 550 children that he has fathered. “So somehow they manage to magically add 450 children to my records,” Meijer said of the Netflix docuseries.
Additionally, Meijer thinks that he may have enough to file a lawsuit of his own. He said, “I think it would make a good legal case to sue them for slander or something … I’m a donor for 17 years. Every child is unique, with their own shape, their own colors. Unique souls born into unique families. They’re not [made from] mass production.”
What do you think of The Man With 1,000 Kids? Let us know in the comments below.
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