For years he dominated daytime television across the United States, oblivious to the cloud of controversy and criticism that followed in his turbulent wake.
Tackling unpleasant and powerful topics such as incest, rape, white supremacy and adultery, The Jerry Springer Show turned car crash television into an art form during its astonishing 26-year run.
Some seven years after its last episode, the new Netflix documentary Fights, Camera, Action highlights the show’s embattled former producers and their increasingly desperate attempts to raise the bar, lower the tone, and increase the ratings.
But a former employee of the show, which primarily filmed at NBC Tower in Chicago before moving to the Stamford Media Center in Connecticut, insists the three-part reveal only reveals a fraction of the truth.
talking to the sunFormer producer Norm Lubow claims that he regularly hired strippers, prostitutes, and adult film actresses to appear as fake guests on the show, and provided backstage favors to its titular host.
‘When we were first hired, Jerry came to meet us in Los Angeles and picked us up in a limo. The first thing Jerry told us was: “I want to get laid, where are the prostitutes?” he alleged.
Tackling ugly and powerful topics such as incest, rape, white supremacy and adultery, The Jerry Springer Show turned car crash television into an art form over its astonishing 26-year run.

But former producer Norm Lubow (pictured) claims a new Netflix documentary about the controversial show doesn’t tell the truth about Springer’s association with his guests.
‘We thought, “Wow!” but basically we realized right away that it wasn’t just about getting guests on the show, it was about getting him to sleep with him, which of course we did.
‘That just became part of our job and that’s why we were so successful and moved up the rankings. We found him women who were happy to do double duty: coming to the show and taking care of Jerry after filming.
‘I quickly realized that the most important thing was not to find guests, but to find women for Jerry.
“Luckily, I knew a lot of pretty women, strippers and stuff, from my days in a band in Los Angeles, so I quickly went from looking for freelance guests to producing full-time on the show.”
Lubow claims that some of the female guests would do “double duty” by indulging Springer’s sexual requests backstage.
“I’d go up to them and say, ‘Uh, you know I’m a new producer here and it would do me a big favor if you went out with Jerry tonight, he thinks you’re cool,’ and they’d say, ‘So I was like the pimp.’ , he stated.
“It didn’t take much convincing, the girls were happy to go with him.”
In 1998, Springer was forced to explain himself after photos emerged of the married host having a threesome with guest Kendra Jade, an adult porn star, and her stepmother.

Some seven years after its last episode, the new Netflix documentary Fights, Camera, Action highlights the show’s embattled former producers and their increasingly desperate attempts to raise the bar, lower the tone, and increase the ratings.
At the time, Springer was still married to his wife Micki Velton despite a reported separation about four years earlier.
Netflix refers to the scandal in its new docuseries as a solitary incident, but Lubow says it was actually the tip of a very large iceberg.
She added: “It was just an accepted part of my job to be his pimp and in the Netflix show they say he had a sex scandal.” No way, that was the only time he got caught.
Surprisingly, Lubow, former singer of the heavy metal band Just Say Yes, found paid work on the show after making six previous guest appearances on stage.
One appearance, filmed months before he was hired as a producer, saw him put on a “presidential campaign” parody as the fictional, marijuana-loving Reverend Bud Green.
Along with his close friend Al Bowman and two bikini-clad women, ‘Bud’ pledged to legalize cannabis and give everyone a free limo if people voted for him.
In a previous show, Lubow presented himself as a modern-day Robin Hood who took advantage of the catastrophic Los Angeles riots by stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.

Surprisingly, Lubow, former singer of the heavy metal band Just Say Yes, found paid work on the show after making six previous guest appearances on stage, including one as marijuana-loving presidential candidate Reverend Bud Green. .

In a previous show, Lubow presented himself as a modern-day ‘Robin Hood’ who took advantage of the catastrophic Los Angeles riots by stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.
Interestingly, Lubow says Bowman was also offered a production role after initially appearing as a guest.
“We were guests turned producers, something no one has ever done in the history of television,” he said.
“That’s how quickly it happened: Al and I were on the air as guests in September 1996, and then within a month we were guest finders and within three months we were producers of the show.”
He added: “The word ‘fake’ was never used, but the producers were like, ‘Find us someone who says he’s a pimp or who says he does drugs.’
—As I said, they wanted to eat steak but they didn’t want to know how the cow was slaughtered. But they knew that many of these people were not legitimate and preferred the fake shows because they were more fun and less problematic.
No stranger to controversy, Lubow appeared on numerous talk shows in the United States during the 1990s while promoting The Religion of The Holy Herb, an organization he claimed to have founded in Southern California.
He gained notoriety by lighting marijuana joints on stage, long before the drug was legalized for recreational use in 24 of its 50 states.
Lubow also appeared in Nick Broomfield’s documentary Kurt and Courtney, an essay about Nirvana singer Kurt Cobain’s marriage to Courtney Love and the conspiracy theories surrounding her death by suicide in 1994.
Interestingly, she represented an anonymous plaintiff who in 2016 filed lawsuits under the name Katie Johnson alleging that she had been raped by US President Donald Trump.
The lawsuit claimed that Trump and convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, who died in prison in 2019, kept Johnson as a “sex slave” in 1994, when she was 13 years old.
A judge later dismissed the case, ruling that there were no valid claims under federal law.

Lubow says some of the female guests would do ‘double duty’ by indulging Springer’s sexual requests backstage (Pictured: Jerry Spring hosting a 1998 episode titled I’m Pregnant with My Half-Brother)

Lubow also appeared on the show’s 1,200th milestone, during which he was filmed chatting with Springer.
Springer died at age 79 in 2023, shortly after being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.
Weeks before his death, the veteran presenter refuted accusations of falsehood on his hit show, insisting that much of what was broadcast was real.
‘I would say it was 98% real. In fact, the lawyers were involved, (so) they would sue you if you made it up,’ he told Australian program The Morning Show.
Springer said his guests were completely genuine, but often behaved in an exaggerated manner due to the show’s rowdy atmosphere.
‘The situations were true. What made it beautiful… were the reactions. Because the audience was shouting, “Jerry, Jerry!”‘ he said.
‘They had seen the show 100 times before. And then you could have the same people on Oprah and they would have behaved perfectly.
“It’s just that when they came to our show, they knew the procedure and they behaved like that.”

The raucous talk show, which ran for nearly 4,000 episodes, began airing in September 1991 and peaked in the late ’90s.

Jerry Springer was canceled in 2018 after 27 seasons.
The raucous talk show, which ran for nearly 4,000 episodes, began airing in September 1991 and peaked in the late ’90s.
It was so popular that in 1998 Springer starred in a movie called Ringmaster, based on the shocking show.
Reflecting on its success, Springer said: “It was a crazy show. For 30 years and… it was enjoyable. Obviously there was an audience that enjoyed it.
‘(But) I never thought it had any redeeming social value. I mean, it wouldn’t hurt you, but it wouldn’t make you a better person either.