Netflix viewers have been left utterly horrified by a “disgusting” and “infuriating” new documentary, with many declaring the three-part series is even worse than they had imagined.
The Man With 1000 Kids, which premiered worldwide on July 3, follows Dutch YouTuber and prolific sperm donor Jonathan Jacob Meijer, 42, who is believed to have fathered more than 500 children over nearly two decades.
Viewers expressed their shock on social media, with many in disbelief at Jonathan, who insisted his compulsion to donate is an act of altruism.
“The Netflix documentary The Man with 1000 Sons is insane,” wrote one on X. “That guy should go to jail.”
Another said: “OMG! The man with 1000 kids is just outrageous. Jonathan and Leon deserve some kind of punishment. That’s disgusting in so many ways.”
A new three-part docuseries has left Netflix viewers feeling ‘disgusted’
The Man of 1,000 Children reveals the baffling story of serial sperm donor Jonathan Jacob Meijer (pictured)
A third added: “Okay. I knew The Man of a Thousand Sons was going to be crazy, but this is crazy and way beyond what I imagined.”
“I just watched ‘The Man with 1000 Sons’ on Netflix and I honestly don’t know what to say,” said a fourth.
“I thought ‘Our Father’ was bad, but this… I don’t know. I have no words. Every episode had a new twist that made everything worse and I was like…”
Commenting on the implications of having hundreds of children, one user said: “The guy with 1000 kids is crazy. It’s like they’re sure to meet a sibling and not know it. Smh.”
The man with 1000 children There is talk of some mothers revealing how Johnathan avoided official sperm banks and sometimes even suggested they have sex to conceive.
Vanessa from the Netherlands recalled how she connected with Jonathan on a website where they arranged for him to visit their house and donate his sperm in a cup.
However, when she got home, she alleges that he convinced her to conceive her child “naturally” with him because it was the most “effective” method of conception, and she then agreed to have sex with him.
Jonathan refused to appear in the documentary, which he called “misleading and confusing.”
The Man of 1,000 Children has captivated viewers by exposing the sordid side of sperm donation.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Woman Hour programme, she said: “They deliberately called it The Man with 1,000 Children, when it should be ‘the sperm donor who helped families conceive 550 children’.”
Jonathan’s children are spread all over the world: some 375 live in the Netherlands, 80 in Germany, 35 in Belgium, four in Argentina and two in Australia.
His massive donations first came to light in 2017 and he was banned from donating to Dutch fertility clinics, where he had already fathered more than 100 children.
However, he continued to donate abroad, including to the internationally operating Danish sperm bank Cryos, and offered his services through websites and social media, according to Dutch news website Algemeen Dagblad.
Sperm bank Cryos sold its donations for around £1,100 each, but Jonathan says he gives his sperm for free. Speaking to German media, he said: “I don’t ask for anything, but sometimes I get £64, a plane ticket or a camera as a gift.”
Jonathan also continued to offer himself as a donor on sites that match potential parents with sperm donors, sometimes using a different name.
Some of his “victims” have since created a Facebook page under the sinister name Donor 102 – the number of babies he was found to have fathered in 2017.
Vanessa, who appears, revealed she privately arranged to have a child with Jonathan, 42, who suggested they conceive “naturally”.
Jonathan and his lawyer Richard van der Zwan sit in court in April 2023 as he was ordered to stop donating sperm to clinics.
In April 2023, a Dutch court ordered Jonathan to stop donating sperm to clinics or face a fine of 100,000 euros ($1,078,000) per violation.
The judges also ordered him to write to clinics abroad asking them to destroy all the semen they have in stock, except for the doses reserved for parents who have already had children with him.
The decision came after a civil suit was filed by a foundation representing the interests of donor children and the Dutch parents who had used Jonathan as a donor.
They argued that his continued donations violated the privacy rights of his donor children, whose ability to form romantic relationships is hampered by fears of accidental incest and inbreeding.
Incredibly, Jonathan continues to donate sperm, but, he says, only to women who already have one of his children and wish to have another, which is what the recent court ruling allows.
The Man with a Thousand Sons is streaming on Netflix