JEREMY Kyle fought back tears as he spoke about his TV show being axed on Kate Garraway’s Life Stories last night.
The ITV show was cancelled following the tragic death of a guest in 2019.
Steve Dymond took his own life after failing a lie detector test on the ITV1 daytime show after being accused of cheating on his partner.
But in September last year an inquest found no “clear and reliable causal connection” between the suicide and Dymond’s appearance on the series.
During an emotional chat with Kate, Jeremy recalled the devastating time he found out about Steve taking his own life.
Jeremy said: “I’ve got great people who saved me.
“My thoughts were always first and foremost for Steve Dymond.
“To get to a point where you would do that, must be terrible and his family but it was so frustrating Kate because for five years I couldn’t say anything for legal reasons.”
The TV presenter admitted it quickly “snowballed” and he felt for the people who worked on the show that lost their jobs.
Jeremy continued: “I wasn’t able to say anything and I thought about the people who lost their jobs over night, lost their mortgages, lost their livelihoods.
“It was snowballing and it became massive. It became a news story and the frustration was that you’re sat there and you couldn’t say anything which was really difficult. You have to feel for his family as well and the process got dragged out.”
He added: “It became huge because the family needed the truth and we needed the truth to be out there.
“I get it, I understand entirely that the Kyle show had to fall as a result of it. I completely get the people who were critics of the show, the ‘He had it coming!’ ‘Gobby!’ whatever. I get that, it’s fine, no bitterness, no anger. You find out who you’re friends are.”
The ITV series was axed in 2019 after 3,320 episodes across 17 series.
Jeremy insisted the programme’s volatile nature, which encouraged conflicts and confrontations for entertainment, is a thing of the past now the world has changed so dramatically.
Speaking about the reasons why the show would never return, Jeremy said: “There’s that great line, ‘do you want me to lie or do you want me to be honest’ and all the producers would say ‘oh god he’s going to tell the truth again’ but that was what people at that time craved.
“We live in a world now where people aren’t honest, are they?
“They’re too busy worrying about what kind of response they’re going to get.”
Viewers were used to onstage brawls on The Jeremy Kyle Show as guests rowed over family and romantic relationships, sex and addiction.
But in 2015 an episode was pulled over “violent content” – and it was never aired on TV.
Jeremy has always defended the programme against critics who dubbed it “poverty porn” and “classist television” — mocking struggling working-class people.
The presenter said of The Jeremy Kyle Show: “It was a juggernaut. You would look at it now and think it’s a bygone era.
“We launched in 2005, that was just before the advent of social media and I think that changed everything.
“And people… Would they watch it because it would help them? They’d feel better about their own lives?
“Many people were invested in it. The world has changed dramatically – you can’t say boo to a goose now, can you?
“Understandably, shows like that have gone by the by.
“But I’m immensely proud of those numbers of episodes, taking it to America and the people that we genuinely helped.
“Listen, 15 years is a long time.”
