Netflix’s new docuseries The Man With 1000 Kids tells the surprising story of a Dutch sperm donor named Jonathan Jacob Meijer, who has fathered upwards of 500 children worldwide. If you’ve seen the series, you may be wondering where he is now.
Meijer is a Dutch sperm donor, YouTube vlogger and musician. The documentary follows multiple families who had children with his sperm donations through as they fought to stop him from continuing to donate any more sperm, accusing him of lying to them about how many children he had already created through donations.
With so many half-siblings scattered across the world, the families argued that Meijer poses a public health risk to their children, who could unknowingly start incestuous relationships with one of their hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of half-siblings around the world if they meet without realizing that they are related.
In the Netherlands, the docuseries explains, medical guidelines advise sperm donors not to exceed 25 children in the country, but there are no regulations to enforce that cap.
Meijer was the subject of a 2021 New York Times story that referred to him as a “serial” sperm donor, reporting that he had fathered 102 children in the Netherland through sperm banks and another 80 through private donations. Meijer has maintained that he has fathered an estimated 550 children around the world, but not over 1,000 as the docuseries says.
Where Is Jonathan Jacob Meijer Now?
Based on his YouTube channel, he is continuing to travel the world and post vlogs about his life.
In 2023, after a Dutch mother filed an injunction against Meijer arguing a public health risk, a Hague District Court judge banned Meijer from making any more sperm donations, with the consequence of a 100,000 Euro fine for each violation.
Despite the ruling, Meijer has denied any wrongdoing in a YouTube video response to the docuseries and refuting an allegation that he mixed his sperm with another donor’s and gave it to mothers without telling them. In another video, he explained why he feels he was justified in lying to parents about how many children he has.
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Meijer did not immediately respond to an emailed request for comment Monday.
Despite Meijer’s estimate that he has 550 children, fertility fraud activist Eve Wiley said in the doc that she believes his true number of offspring could be as high as 3,000.
“With Jonathan and [sperm bank] Cryos International, he’s going to Copenhagen once a month for four days for four years. That’s roughly 200 donations, and you can get about 15 straws of sperm per ejaculation. If every straw makes a baby, that could be 3,000 potential children,” she said in the docuseries. “That is just one sperm bank. And we know that he was in at least 11 sperm banks.”
The sperm donor has also argued the doc overinflated the number of children he has and expressed plans to file a slander lawsuit against Netflix. Reps for Netflix did not immediately respond to MovieMaker‘s request for comment
The Man With 1000 Kids director Josh Allott speculated as to what Meijer’s motivations are in an interview with Netflix’s Tudum.
“You get one life on this Earth — why has he chosen to use his charm and his intellect and his creativity in order to try to procreate on a mass scale and deceive all these people?” Allott said. “Speaking to lots of different parents that have met him and people that know him well, it seems like it almost became an addiction for him.”
“It may be that he’s just become totally addicted to this feeling of having children, this innate weird biological thing that’s got completely out of hand,” he continued. “And then there’s all the affirmation that comes from parents who will tell him about how amazing they think their child is and the incredible features that their child has. It must be this incredible ego boost for him.”
Meijer has denied statements made in the docuseries that he has an addiction to donating sperm. He continues to be banned from making donations, and has said in his YouTube videos that he stopped donating sperm in 2019.
Main Image: Jonathan Jacob Meijer in The Man With 1000 Kids, Netflix