Featured Image Credit: The Jerry Springer Show/NBC
Topics: Film and TV, Netflix, News, US News, The Jerry Springer Show
Niamh Shackleton
Topics: Film and TV, Netflix, News, US News, The Jerry Springer Show
The Jerry Springer Show was known for its eyebrow-raising episodes, but one was deemed so controversial that it only aired once.
The show first premiered in 1991 and continued to run until its cancelation in 2018 — just five years before Springer's death.
The late TV show host died from pancreatic cancer in April 2023 at the age of 79.
At one point over its 27 season-run, The Jerry Springer Show was brutally dubbed as 'the worst TV show of all time', but that didn't stop it becoming one of America's most-viewed daytime shows.
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Some queried if some of the interviews and guests were staged, but Springer always said that it was '98 percent real'.
"In fact, the lawyers were involved — you'd get sued if you made it up," he insisted.
However, he couldn't say for sure if the guests were 'fooling' them or not.
Springer went on: "Now, if you’re asking me 'was there ever a time when someone fooled us?'.
"To this day, we don’t know if they made it up."
And one episode likely to raise questions of if it was true or not centered on a man who allegedly left his wife and kids to marry a horse.
Yes, you read that correctly.
The episode initially aired in 1998 and, while Jerry Springer was known for covering controversial topics, this one was deemed too contentious and never saw the light of day again.
But it's doing the rounds again over 20 years later in the wake of Netflix's new limited series, Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action.
The two-part documentary dropped on the streaming service on January 7.
The story was so scandalous, the Jerry Springer staffer who got the tip was 'petrified' to pitch it.
Producer Toby Yoshimura recalls in the Netflix doc: "It had to be 3 or 4 in the morning when I get a call from this guy.
"He says, 'Hi my name is Mark… I’ve been meaning to call the show for a long time because you guys are the only people who would really understand me. I left my wife and my two daughters for a Shetland pony.'"
He continued, as per PEOPLE: "I’m like, ‘This is a f**king dream'. He said that he and [his pony] Pixel had looked at each other and they had an immediate connection."
Because of the apparent 'connection' they had, the man in question insisted that his relationship with the horse wasn't bestiality.
Many viewers felt otherwise, however.
In the episode, Mark admitted to having 'intimate relations' with the horse, adding that the two had taken part in a wedding ceremony.
In the end, the episode only aired in New York City and was banned from all other markets.
TV critic Roger Feder described it at the time as 'the most vile and grotesque freak show that’s ever been on television'.