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"The Man with 1000 Kids" tells the story of four couples and a single woman as they gradually realize their sperm donor has fathered hundreds of children.
The Netflix docuseries details how Jonathan Jacob Meijer told those who used him as a donor that he had only helped a handful of families. But as parents in The Netherlands realize their children born using sperm donors look oddly similar, it becomes clear that wasn't the case. It later emerges he has been donating sperm around the world.
The families quickly become fearful of the potential dangers to future generations if half-siblings unknowingly have children together.
A man identified as John, one half of a couple who used Meijer, said on the show: "We thought, 'Oh fuck. What if these children meet each other and maybe have a connection or fall in love and they don't know they are related?' That's when the real panic started. That's when we saw the real danger of this."
In April 2023, Meijer was banned from donating sperm to fertility clinics by the Hague District Court in his native Netherlands, after it emerged he had fathered over 500 children, The Independent reported.
He will be fined €100,000 for every violation if he donates again.
An anonymous sperm donor also alleged in the series that Meijer and another man, identified only as Leon, ran a website called "Longing for a Child" to try to father as many children as possible. The anonymous donor claimed that Meijer and Leon mixed their sperm samples together to play "sperm roulette," to see who the child would look like.
In an email to Business Insider, Meijer denied running the site.
"I have never ran a website, there's no evidence for that. I had posted my advertisement on that very website in the early years of my donating, 2008-2014," he wrote. "What Leon did is unclear to me, I have met him 4-5 times in my life, he passed away two years ago."
Meijer added, referring to Netflix: "I will take legal action for slander, this is really insane! I will take legal action, not only because of the mixing but some other claims as well."
Netflix didn't respond to a request for comment from BI.
The docuseries details how Meijer traveled a lot for work, which is why some of the mothers involved were not able to speak to him face-to-face when they discovered just how many children were conceived using his sperm samples.
He frequently posts videos to his YouTube channel about his thoughts on various topics, such as spirituality, traditional wives, raw meat diets, and his reaction to "The Man with 1000 Kids."
On May 5th, he uploaded a video from Tanzania, explaining that he decided to leave the Netherlands because it had become overpopulated and that he wanted to be closer to nature.
In his most recent upload on July 3rd, Meijer was on a beach in Zanzibar, off the east coast of Africa. He explained that he spent "over 50,000 hours" as a sperm donor until 2019, when he said he stopped donating to clinics.
