Jonathan Meijer From The Man With 1000 Kids Responded To The Netflix Doc

The Man with 1000 Kids focuses on a Dutch sperm donor who fathered an immense number of children — and who, today, has been legally barred from donating to new families.

But the subject of the Netflix docuseries doesn’t agree with all the claims made about him. So, where is Jonathan Meijer from The Man with 1000 Kids today?

A So-Called “Serial” Sperm Donor

In the new three-part docuseries (which dropped on July 3), several families who used Meijer’s sperm share their stories. Some had Meijer privately donate in their home, while others went through sperm banks. These families, located around the world, allege that they were misled about how many other children Meijer had already fathered — a figure Meijer himself places at about 550, while The Man with 1000 Kids estimates to be “as high as 3,000.”

As the growing network of families learned their children were unwitting half-siblings, they grew concerned. As one parent voiced in the docuseries, “What if these children meet each other and maybe have a connection and fall in love, and they don’t know that they’re related? And that’s when the real panic started.”

According to The New York Times, Meijer was allegedly able to circumnavigate donation limits by not disclosing previous donations. According to the doc, clinics “have no way to check how many children a donor has.”

In 2023, a court in the Netherlands ruled that Meijer couldn’t donate to new parents. (The Netflix docuseries adds that he’ll be fined 100,000 euros per donation if he violates that order.)

“I already stopped donating for new recipients in 2019,” Meijer told the BBC upon the release of the new docuseries. “I only donated for siblings. The court case was basically useless because I already stopped, and the court case did not prohibit me to help existing families.”

Jonathan Meijer Responded To Netflix

The sperm donor has also shared his thoughts on his personal YouTube channel, where he documents his international travels, personal philosophies, and even messages for the donor-conceived children he’s fathered.

Meijer called trailers for The Man with 1000 Kids “misleading” and “disgusting.”

“I think I have the right to say that I’m a very good donor,” he said in one video, released on the same day as the docuseries. “Sure, I have made some mistakes over the years. And I will take responsibility, also, for the mistakes. But eventually, I think — and this is also what the majority of recipients, of parents, think — is that I’m a very good donor.”