The true story behind ‘The Man With 1000 Kids,’ a shocking Netflix doc

“The Man With 1000 Kids” has risen to the top of Netflix’s series since it premiered earlier this month.

The three-part docuseries explores the actions of Jonathan Meijer, a Dutch man in his early 40s who has fathered, in his estimation, about 550 children via sperm donation since he was in his 20s.

Here’s what to know about the man that inspired the documentary.

What is ‘The Man With 1000 Kids’ about?

“The Man With 1000 Kids,” a documentary released by Netflix in July, centers around Jonathan Jacob Meijer, a Dutch musician and YouTube content creator.

Private recipients and donation clinics accused Meijer of lying about the number of times he had donated in the past. In the Netherlands, guidelines limit donors to producing no more than 25 children with a maximum of 12 mothers, the Associated Press reported last year.

The documentary includes interviews with families who say they feel betrayed by Meijer. One featured couple, identified as Suzanne and Natalie, said in the documentary that Meijer told them he was only donating to five families.

The Dutch Society for Obstetrics and Gynecology banned him from donating sperm in the Netherlands in 2017, but he continued to donate abroad.

In 2023, the Netherlands’ Hague District Court banned him from donating his sperm, and ordered him to pay a fine of 100,000 Euro (about $108,000) per case if he violated the ban, according to the Associated Press.

Meijer said that he did not lie to donors, and he has disputed the documentary’s claims that his actions were harmful or unethical.

“Technically didn’t lie, I followed the guidelines of every large commercial international sperm bank that do not inform the recipients about the amount of offspring one donor will produce,” he told TODAY.com in an email earlier this week.

He said he offered a better service to hopeful families than a sperm clinic could.

“I am one of the best donors: I gave higher quality than any sperm bank can give,” he said in his email.

The documentary’s director, Josh Allott, told Netflix’s Tudum that he approached Meijer about participating in the project, but said Meijer declined.

“I did meet (Jonathan) in order to speak to him about being in the documentary,” Allott said. “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.”

In a July 11 YouTube video, Meijer explained why he turned down the invitation to participate, saying he prefers to share his story on his own platforms rather than Netflix.

“They tried to talk me into it many times … Well, you know, it’s 2024,” he said.

“Here’s my side of the story. I don’t need any outdated company to leech off a story that is not a story in the first place.”

He also said he believed the documentary was “capitalizing on the lives” of his donor children, and he questioned the motivations behind the project.

“They’re not there to really tell a story that is positive for all the donor children,” he said. ‘They have their little compromised version of it and … they have some bad energy in themselves.”

How many kids does Jonathan Meijer have?

It is unknown exactly how many children Meijer has.

While the documentary’s title suggests he has fathered at least 1,000 children, Meijer said that the number is closer to 550 children, which he says were welcomed by 225 families, per a June 27 YouTube video.

Meijer told the BBC after the docuseries came out he stopped donating to new recipients in 2019.

“I only donated for siblings. The court case was basically useless because I already stopped, and the court case did not prohibit me to help existing families,” he said.

The documentary explores the implication of having such a large pool of genetically related people, in the Netherlands and elsewhere.

“Obviously, the children are affected, and the children’s children are affected,” executive producer Natalie Hill said in Netflix’s Tudum, the streamer’s companion website.

“But every cousin is affected. Everyone who becomes a partner of those children is then affected. Jonathan’s brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, everyone that is connected or becomes connected by making a new family will be affected by his actions.”

Rachel Goldberg, a licensed therapist who specializes in fertility and third-party reproduction, also told TODAY.com earlier this week that Meijer’s actions could lead to guilt for parents who trusted him.

“They were so betrayed. They let this person into their lives, some let them into their body,” she said. “There’s probably an immense amount of guilt about not maybe doing due diligence or falling for the videos, or even if it wasn’t their fault and they didn’t know this was happening. They tried to do the best they could to start a family.”

Where is Jonathan Meijer now?

Meijer continues to post regular YouTube videos disputing the documentary’s claims. In a July 11 video,

“If there will be weird allegations in this documentary, which is not a documentary, of course, I will debunk them on my own channel in my own way,” he said. “Of course I’ve got some help, legal help, on that.”

He added in the video that if he does ever participate in a media project about his actions, “it will be about informing, showing how it is to be a donor… and the positive sides.”

In recent months, Meijer has been posting YouTube videos from various locations in Tanzania.

This article was originally published on TODAY.com