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He was once the undisputed king of daytime television, but now the tables have turned as he finds himself in the hot seat for his first ever TV interview.
Returning to ITV after a six-year hiatus, Jeremy Kyle has revealed how he feels about the controversial cancellation of The Jeremy Kyle Show.
The 59-year-old admitted on Kate Garraway‘s Life Stories that his show would never get the green light in today’s television landscape.
‘It was a juggernaut. You’d look now and think that was a bygone era. We launched in 2005, just before the advent of social media,’ he told Ms Garraway, 57.
‘I think that changed everything. People would 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? But I’m immensely proud of those numbers of episodes, taking it to America, and the people that we genuinely helped.’
The Jeremy Kyle Show ran for 14 years, with over 3,300 episodes, and viewing figures of up to one million per episode.
Known for its confrontational style, the show featured guests resolving personal conflicts, often through lie detector tests and heated arguments.
However, in May 2019, the programme was abruptly pulled off air following the death of Steve Dymond, who took his own life a week after failing a lie detector test about his faithfulness to his partner.
An inquest later revealed it was ‘speculative’ to suggest the show played a role in Mr Dymond’s death.
The coroner noted that although Mr Kyle could be ‘quite critical,’ there was ‘insufficient evidence’ that his comments contributed to Mr Dymond’s distress.
The backlash over the incident led to tighter rules within the TV industry and revised welfare measures, particularly in reality series.
Since then, Mr Kyle has been off ITV airwaves, with his broadcast appearances mostly limited to his role hosting on Talk TV.
Reflecting on the show’s cancellation, Mr Kyle said: ‘I understand entirely that the Kyle Show had to fall on its sword as a result of that.
‘You can be the king of the castle one day and the next day not allowed in the castle grounds.’
Mr Kyle described the return to ITV as ‘great,’ adding: ‘ITV have been really supportive for the last five years. We always wanted to do this, and with you [Kate], we go back a long way, so it’s perfect.’
During his interview, the father-of-four also revealed a more vulnerable side, rarely seen on screen.
‘Clumsy, idiotic, OCD…’ he laughed, recalling an embarrassing moment when he tried to walk on at the start of the show and ‘fell on my face.’
The interview shows Jeremy’s rise to fame, the challenges he faced behind the scenes and how the collapse of his show affected both his career and personal life.
In a voiceover at the start, Ms Garraway said: ‘Jeremy Kyle dominated television for more than a decade. His TV show was a huge ratings success.
‘But with fame came controversy and a very public tragedy. We’ll delve into the personal challenges that shaped him and the public scrutiny that nearly destroyed him.’
He also shared how he struggled with shyness growing up in Reading, Berkshire.
‘I was the shyest boy in the school,’ he recalled.
‘There was this sort of seminal moment at 15 and a half. I worked out that if you became the loudest in the class and took the mickey out of the people that were taking it out of you, you’d be alright.
‘And that’s what I did. It was a mask, really.’
Kate Garraway’s Life Stories featuring Jeremy Kyle airs Tuesday at 9pm on ITV1, ITVX, STV and STV Player.
