As you will have heard by now the Jeremy Kyle show has suspended filming and been taken off air after a guest killed himself following a humiliating appearance on the show.
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Steven Dymond, a 69-year-old grandfather, was found dead days after he failed a lie detector test on the show, with reports claiming he had been ‘feeling suicidal’ and was left in ‘tears’ by his experience.
A former Jeremy Kyle crew member (who asked to remain anonymous) spoke to Metro earlier and slammed the show for winding up its guests backstage before even putting them in front of the cameras.
Speaking about her time working backstage:
I remember there was a guy there who came to confront his girlfriend, I’m guessing she was being unfaithful to him or something like that. We were in the small room you see on the programme, and the researcher was there. He was basically there egging this guy on.
He was saying something along the lines of, “You need to be a man, you have to tell her. It’s either you or him.” Just getting him riled up and making him emotional, so when he goes out there, I’m guessing it’s meant to be entertaining for us viewers to see this guy angry.
I didn’t know that happened until I witnessed it myself, the fact they actually infuriate these people and try and make them as emotional as possible before going on stage. I wasn’t comfortable with that.
She continues:
The problem I had with the researcher egging this guy on is that the guy clearly… he looked and seemed as though he had learning difficulties. When this guy was telling him, “You need to go out there and confront him, and do this, do that”, he was clearly buying it, going along with it. You could tell he was easily being manipulated by the researcher.
I don’t think the people who go on this programme know what they’re going there to be egged on or riled up to act a fool on television.
That wasn’t the only time she witnessed something backstage she felt uneasy about:
There was a lady that came with her daughter. I think there was something going on between herself and her daughter, and they went on the show to resolve it, I’m guessing.
Once they’d finished filming, they came upstairs and she was very, very upset, saying: “I want an apology from Jeremy, I came here to make things better with my daughter but it only made it worse”.
The woman in question was so upset that she refused to leave, and kept repeating that ‘things had been made worse’ by her stint on the show:
I don’t know what happened that day, and what Jeremy said to her, but she was upset and stayed there for some time, probably around 45 minutes or so. Eventually we managed to get her out and take her home.
The aftercare, for me and from what I observed that day, it’s almost as if it’s just there for show, it’s there to make people think the people who go on the show are well looked after. I don’t really think that’s the case.
As soon as they were done, we had to make sure they were out of the building as soon as possible, it wasn’t that someone sat with them for an extensive amount of time and tried to calm them down, that didn’t happen. You’re done, we get you a cab, and you’re off.
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On those who have recently come forward and raved about the aftercare they received from the show, she ‘doubts’ their accounts as she didn’t see anything of the sort:
As soon as people finished filming, so as soon as we were done with the guests, we had to get them out as soon as possible.
That’s the thing that shocked me. So when people are saying the aftercare is amazing, I seriously, honestly doubt that because that’s what I saw.
We had to get them out as soon as they finished. You get them upstairs, they get their belongings, and as soon as their taxi is outside, you take them out and they’re gone.
The issue with the aftercare that ITV provides, there’s a problem there. I think it’s not very thorough. It’s almost as if once they’re done with you, that’s it. I don’t think I’m the only one who has worked on the Jeremy Kyle show and felt a bit uneasy about how things are done.
If everything this ex Jeremy Kyle show employee is saying is true, then it’s definitely not a good look for Kyle or ITV and doesn’t bode well for the show’s future. People have criticised the show for years for exploiting probably the dumbest, most vulnerable and lowest IQ people in the country for TV ratings but one thing you relied on was that their aftercare process was of good enough quality to ensure no one was left completely traumatised by their experience.
That’s not the case according to this ex-employee and so I guess it was only a matter of time before something like this happened. The show did have some classic moments, but maybe it’s for the best if ITV scraps it altogether.
