Mixed sperm donations?

“Man with 1,000 children” fights back against Netflix

The Dutch "sperminator" Jonathan Meijer is said to have hundreds and hundreds of children all over the world - including in Austria.

(Bild: © 2024 Netflix, Inc.)

Jonathan Jacob Meijer, known as the "man with 1000 children", is defending himself against the claims made in the new Netflix documentary about his allegedly enormous number of offspring, some of whom are also said to exist in Austria. He also denies having mixed his sperm with that of another donor in order to play a little god ...

The documentary "The man with 1000 children" has been online on Netflix since Wednesday. What is reported in it does indeed seem to be completely crazy, at least it is shocking. In a kind of god complex, Jonathan Jacob Meijer, who is portrayed as charming, blonde, musical and educated, is said to have fulfilled the wishes of hopeful women worldwide for years with private sperm donations and large-scale commercial sperm banks. With sperm donations in countless non-networked clinics around the world, even in Kenya, as well as through personal service - delivery to the doorstep in a cup or, if desired, sexual intercourse - he is said to have "fathered" around a thousand or even more children.

50,000 hours in sperm donation clinics
Meijer, who admits to having spent up to 50,000 hours in sperm donation clinics over the last 15 years, now denies that this figure could be true.

In YouTube videos, the record-breaking sperm donor, who did not want to cooperate with the makers of the three-part Netflix documentary, says that there are at most around 550 children of his. This is also the number he was able to prove in a court case that stopped him from spreading his genes in April. He now faces a fine of 100,000 euros per child if he violates this rule.

Meijer also claims that he has only helped 225 families and therefore does not see himself as anything special. He pointed out that many sperm banks work with mass donors who have also fathered hundreds of children. There have never been any regulations, laws or data comparisons.

Confusion about "sperm roulette"
 The documentary also claims that Meijer mixed his sperm with another donor, creating a kind of "sperm roulette".

Meijer also rejects this accusation in a recent video, but admitted that there had been meetings with the man named Leon. "Even though he looks like a hooligan, he's a nice, funny guy," said Meijer about his colleague, who was portrayed as a rather shady and creepy character in the documentary.

In his criticism of the Netflix production, Meijer also accuses the makers of choosing a distorted and "feminine", almost romantic angle for the whole story. His appearance was exaggerated. "I know what I look like, okay, my hair is above average, but I'm happy with the way I look..."

Worried about the Luke and Leia effect
He insists he only ever wanted to help. "I'm more sad that they decided to change the lives of all my children - my donor children," he said. "It's not about me. It's about the parents and the children." He even tries to maintain contact with his children. They could call him at any time if something was wrong. 

In the documentary, the parents of these children have their say, who have networked and held sibling meetings so that at least some of the children can get to know each other. The biggest concern is that the large number of offspring could inadvertently lead to incestuous relationships.

In the documentary, this is called the Luke and Leia effect. In the "Star Wars" saga, Luke Skywalker and Leia Morgana are attracted to each other without realizing that they are twins who were separated at birth and raised on different planets. According to the documentary, Meijer suggested that his children should put some kind of marker on social media that they are descended from him. 

Harrison Ford, Carrie Fishe and Mark Hamill as Han Solo, Princess Leia and Luke Skywalker

(Bild: AP)

170 million lawsuit by Scottish woman
This is the second time in a very short space of time that Netflix has been accused of not doing a completely clean job, even if the allegations are probably all true at their core.

At the beginning of June, a Scottish woman sued the streaming provider for payment of at least 170 million dollars (156 million euros) due to the alleged resemblance to a stalker in the series "Baby Reindeer". Fiona Harvey had initially claimed in public that she had been the model for the character Martha. She had a physical resemblance to her and, like her, was a lawyer in London. She has now filed a lawsuit with the federal court in Los Angeles.

In it, she claims that Netflix and the creator of the series, Richard Gadd, went too far by suggesting in the series that she had been sentenced to five years in prison for stalking and harassing a person. She was neither a stalker nor had she been imprisoned. Thousands of Reddit and Tiktok users couldn't tell the difference and were talking about her as the real Martha, the character's name on the show. "Defendants told these lies and never stopped because it was a better story than the true story and better stories made money," the lawsuit states. Netflix said it would vigorously defend itself.

In the series, which purports to be a true story, Martha stalks a man, the author of the series, for years. She sends him thousands of emails, stalks him, lies in wait for him outside his home and also harasses friends and family.