“Far beyond what I imagined”

By Cydney Yeates for Dailymail.com

22:25 03 Jul 2024, updated 22:35 03 Jul 2024

Netflix viewers have been left completely horrified by a “disgusting” and “infuriating” new documentary, with many saying the three-part series is even worse than they 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 desire to donate was an act of selflessness.

“The Netflix documentary The Man with 1000 Children is crazy,” wrote one user on X. “This guy should be locked up.”

Another said: “My God! This man with 1000 children is just mad. Jonathan and Leon deserve punishment. This is disgusting on so many levels.”

A third added: “Ok. I knew The Man with 1000 Kids Doc was going to be crazy, but this is crazy and way beyond what I imagined.”

“So I just watched ‘The Man with 1000 Children’ 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 it even worse and I was just thinking…”

Addressing the implications of fathering hundreds of children, one user said: “The man with 1000 children is crazy. Like he’s certain he’ll meet a sibling and not know it. Ugh.”

The Man with 1000 Children Some mothers are heard revealing how Johnathan bypassed official sperm banks and sometimes even suggested having sex to conceive.

Vanessa from the Netherlands recalls how she bonded with Jonathan on a website where they arranged a visit to his home for him to donate his sperm in a cup.

However, when he arrived at her house, she claims he convinced her to conceive her child “naturally” with him because it was the most “effective” method of conception – and so she agreed to have sex with him.

Jonathan declined to appear in the documentary, which he called “misleading and deceptive.”

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Woman Hour, he said: “They deliberately called (the documentary) The Man with 1,000 Children, when it should have been ‘the sperm donor who helped families conceive with 550 children’.”

Jonathan’s children are spread all over the world. About 375 live in the Netherlands, 80 in Germany, 35 in Belgium, four in Argentina and two in Australia.

His massive donations were first revealed in 2017 and he was banned from donating to Dutch fertility clinics, where he had already fathered more than 100 children.

He has nevertheless continued to donate abroad, including to the Danish sperm bank Cryos, which operates internationally, and has offered his services through websites and social media, according to Dutch news site Algemeen Dagblad.

Sperm bank Cryos was selling his donations for around £1,100 each, but Jonathan claims he gives his sperm for free. He told German media: “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 websites that match potential parents with sperm donors, sometimes under a different name.

Some of his “victims” have since created a Facebook page with the sinister name Donor 102, the number of babies he is said to have fathered in 2017.

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) for each violation.

The judges also ordered him to write to clinics abroad asking them to destroy all his sperm they have in stock, except for doses reserved for parents who have already had children with him.

The decision came after a civil case was launched by a foundation representing the interests of donor children and 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 consanguinity.

Unbelievable, but true: Jonathan continues to donate sperm, but, he claims, only to women who already have a child with him and want another, which the recent court verdict allows.

The Man with a Thousand Children is streaming on Netflix