Jeremy Kyle says show was cancelled because ‘you can’t say boo to a goose’

Jeremy Kyle fronted his ITV talk show for 17 series before it was taken off air (Picture: ITV)

Jeremy Kyle has some interesting thoughts on why his hugely controversial ITV show was axed after almost two decades on air.

The presenter fronted his own talk show from 2005 to 2019. 3,320 episodes were made across 17 series, and it became the most popular programme in the daytime schedule.

At its peak, The Jeremy Kyle Show was watched by one million people, who tuned in for the results of drug tests, paternity tests, and lie detectors as Kyle attempted to resolve personal conflicts.

The show was famously confrontational as ex couples fought over alleged infidelity, and adult children were accused of stealing from their parents. It had everything, from addiction scandals to long-lost family revelations.

However, Kyle’s show was taken off air permanently in May 2019 after the suicide of Steve Dymond. His appearance as a guest the week before never made it to air.

Following an investigation, the programme was cleared of any connection to the cause of Dymond’s death, but its reputation had already been irreversibly tarnished.

Kyle was repeatedly criticised for his treatment of guests (Picture: ITV)

Speaking in his first-ever TV interview, 59-year-old Kyle appears in the new series of Kate Garraway’s Life Stories. The chat was recorded just weeks after he was exonerated in the inquest last September.

During the record, Kyle stated that he accepts his show and those who worked on it had to take responsibility after the tragic nature of Dymond’s death.

‘I understand entirely that The Kyle Show had to fall on its sword because of that,’ he said.

While appearing in front of Kyle and a studio audience six years ago, Dymond failed a lie detector test, which was administered to prove whether he was cheating on his partner, Jane Callaghan. Aged 63, he was found dead seven days later after an overdose.

It later came to light in footage that never made it to TV that Dymond was urged to ‘be a man’ and ‘grow a pair of balls’ by Kyle, who told him he was a ‘serial liar’.

However, the programme is still a chapter in his career Kyle feels proud of, despite having long faced criticism for shouting in guests’ faces and being accused of playing on their mental health problems.

Steve Dymond took his own life in 2019, just one week after appearing on the programme as a guest (Picture: ITV/PA Wire)

‘It was a juggernaut,’ he said of the long-running show. ‘You’d look now and go, “It’s a bygone era.” We launched in 2005, just before the advent of social media, and I think that changed everything.’

‘People watched to make themselves feel better about their own lives, but the world has changed dramatically—you can’t say boo to a goose now, can you?

‘So, understandably, shows like that have gone by the by.’

He added to Good Morning Britain’s Garraway: ‘I’m immensely proud of the 17 series, of taking it to America, and the people that we genuinely helped. 15 years is a long time.’

Since Kyle’s show was placed firmly on the chopping block, conversations about the nature of how guests were treated have continued.

Dymond’s son, Carl Woolley, has made it clear he believes Kyle was directly responsible for his father taking his own life.

Kyle opens up to Kate Garraway in the new series of Life Stories (Picture: ITV)

‘Anyone watching the clips of the show can see that he was in tears and was spoken to in the most brutal way by Jeremy Kyle,’ he previously said in a statement.

‘The only good thing that came of my father’s death is the Jeremy Kyle Show is cancelled.’

Kyle initially remained tight-lipped in the face of ‘lies, false accusations, and unfair criticism’ over the past half a decade, as he’s described it.

But during his interview with Garraway, he admitted the scrutiny took a toll.

‘You can be the king of the castle one day, and the next day you’re not allowed in the castle grounds.’

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He’s glad to be back in the public eye, though, hailing ITV as ‘really supportive’ since his show was cancelled, having been diagnosed with anxiety in the wake of the scandal.

In recent years, Kyle has been seen presenting on the channel Talk, which he joined in 2022.

With regards to his personal life, he married Vicky Burton in 2021, and they share two children together. The youngest—Kyle’s sixth child—was born last year.

Life Stories: Jeremy Kyle airs on Tuesday, April 1 at 9pm on ITV1 and ITVX.

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