‘I have done absolutely nothing wrong’: Man with 1,000 children sperm donor Jonathan Meijer slams Netflix for claims he misled women and hits back at his critics, suggesting HE is the real victim
A coerced sperm donor, who is believed to be the father of around 1,000 children, has said he is the real victim and is “very vulnerable”.
Jonathan Meijer from the Netherlands donated sperm on a large scale and defrauded dozens of parents and eleven clinics around the world.
In an explosive Netflix documentary exploring this “dark world,” women tell how they feel “betrayed” and “angry” after discovering how many other children the musician, now 43, has fathered.
But Meijer, who was also branded a “danger to public health” and a “narcissist” today, claimed in an interview that as a private donor he enjoyed “no protection whatsoever,” making him “very vulnerable.”
And he argued that there was “absolutely nothing wrong” with fathering hundreds of children.
Jonathan Jacob Meijer is a 43-year-old musician from the Netherlands. He is also believed to have fathered hundreds of children around the world.
Meijer’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.
Premiering today on Netflix, The Man With 1000 Kids explores “the dark world of the fertility industry” and how the YouTuber has scammed dozens of parents and 11 clinics around the world.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour: ‘I offer something better than sperm banks.
‘I offer fresh sperm immediately, which is better than frozen sperm.
‘I give it for free, they don’t have to pay me. They can contact me. They can ask me anything they want.
How is this misleading? How is this false?
He added: ‘When I started as a private donor, I was open about the people I helped.
“But you run into so many challenges that I chose to follow the clinic’s guidelines” — and he doesn’t inform people about the number of children he has helped father.
“Still, I decided to give them an indication so they have an idea,” he said.
‘If I said, “Oh, I’ve helped 50 times,” I would at least give an estimated number. So they could see that he’s a mass donor.
‘I gave them more than what the clinic would provide.
In April 2023, a Dutch court ordered Meijer to stop donating sperm to clinics, or risk a fine of 100,000 euros (£88,000) per violation
They argued that Mr Meijer’s continued donations violated the right to privacy of his donor children, whose ability to form romantic relationships is hampered by fear of accidental incest and inbreeding.
‘In a perfect world that would be the best. Everyone could be open, I could be open and I wouldn’t be vulnerable.
‘As a private donor you are very vulnerable. I have experienced situations that you cannot imagine, because I was open about myself.
‘I gave my address, but when I decided not to help someone, they showed up at my door.
‘Who is there to protect me? I have no money in the bank, I have no lawyers.
‘I was very vulnerable, there is no protection for private donors.’
Meijer was banned from donating sperm in the Netherlands in 2017 after it became known that he was the father of 102 children born from donations to 11 clinics in the country.
He continued to donate in other countries until 2023, when a woman and a foundation that supported her filed a civil lawsuit against Meijer, alleging that he increased the risk of incest in his children.
Meijer admitted in his testimony that he had between 550 and 600 children.
However, the court found that he may have fathered as many as a thousand children on different continents.
Ultimately, the judge banned Meijer from donating sperm to new parents in the Netherlands, saying that if he did so, he would be fined €100,000 (£85,000) per donation.
He also occasionally impregnated women through “natural donation”—sex—if the woman was single.
Meijer told Woman’s Hour: ‘I stopped donating to new recipients in 2019. I only donated to siblings.
Over the years, Meijer has lied to everyone after it emerged that he had developed an addiction to donating sperm
“The lawsuit was actually pointless, because I had already stopped. Moreover, the lawsuit did not prohibit me from helping existing families.”
When asked if there are families who still use Meijer as a sperm donor, he replies: ‘Yes, absolutely’.
He added: ‘All these outdated ideas like “the fear of inbreeding”, the “identity crisis”. We are now in 2024.
‘We see lesbian couples everywhere. We see single mothers everywhere.
“We know that donors help families. We should no longer project these outdated ideas onto these children.”
Later, when asked if he felt he had misled women, he also said: ‘If you want exclusivity, you go to the clinic. You pay €10,000 and then your donor is exclusive.
“If you as a mother don’t want to share, why did you choose this path in the first place?
“These mothers in this documentary, they’re pretending, I don’t know why. Maybe they were hurt and they applied this to me.”
In the UK, current rules state that one sperm donor can only start ten families, with each family potentially including multiple siblings.
However, there are no regulations limiting the number of families that donors can create abroad.
Some centers abroad allow sperm to be donated from the same individual, allowing 1,000 or more separate families to be created.
Experts warn that the problem is becoming increasingly urgent as more than half of the donated sperm used in the UK is imported from abroad, while demand for sperm donors is growing as more single women and same-sex female couples have children.
According to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), the fertility regulator, the number of female same-sex couples choosing IVF rose by 33 percent between 2019 and 2021.
Meanwhile, the number of single women undergoing artificial insemination increased by 26 percent.
Last year, Professor Jackson Kirkman-Brown, president of the Association of Reproductive and Clinical Scientists, warned that it could be “psychologically damaging” for children to discover they have hundreds or even thousands of half-siblings.
He said, ‘If you’ve always thought you have this incredibly special talent, it’s very hard to grasp that suddenly there are 300 people who share 50 percent of your DNA.’
It seems that Meijer is now traveling around the world. In one video he can be seen on a beach in Tanzania and in another video he can be seen from Italy.
Research also shows that donor-conceived people often feel pressured to maintain contact with dozens of half-siblings, but this can be “nearly impossible” and cause a lot of stress.
When later asked on Woman’s Hour if he was ‘addicted’ to donating sperm, Meijer said: ‘An addiction always involves physical arousal.
“Can they please explain to me why it’s a turn-on to be in a dirty bathroom? I don’t see the addictive endorphins in that situation.”
When asked if he wanted a family of his own, he added: ‘I want a big family. It’s hard to find someone who also wants a traditional family with traditional values.
‘I always talk about natural tribes and I would like to live like that. Most women are not interested in that. They want a career or are focused on materialism.
‘I want to live very simply on a small farm, self-sufficient and self-reliant.’
The Man With 1000 Kids is now streaming on Netflix