Jonathan Jacob Meijer says he didn’t mean to become The Man with 1000 Kids. For a start, the Dutch sperm donor at the centre of Netflix’s unsettling new three-part docuseries disputes the figure in the title, claiming the real number of donor children he’s helped bring into the world is closer to 600. In the show, the 42-year-old former high school teacher and Crypto trader is portrayed as a zealot determined to spread his seed as far and wide as possible. Mothers from all over the world, who have been having his children since 2007, speak out against him. “I never had the idea to have 100 children or 500 children,” he tells me, speaking down the line from the Netherlands. “It happened step by step. Many donors want to be in the news, but for me if nobody knew about me that would be absolutely fine. Now they do know about me, so I want to explain my side of the story.”
Meijer’s journey to become one of the world’s most prolific sperm donors began when he was at college, where he got talking to a friend who was unable to have children of his own. “He was the first person to put the idea of sperm donation in my mind,” recalls Meijer. A period of introspection followed, as he weighed up how becoming a donor could change his life. A year later in 2007, aged 25, he signed up at a sperm bank. “At first it was really great,” he remembers. “I knew that the people who got my sample would be super happy, and they’d create a family. That’s something meaningful and real.” As he became more at ease with the idea of being a donor, he began to see it as a shame that he had to remain anonymous. “I thought it was a pity I couldn’t meet people and see the smiles on their faces,” he says. “Then I read about websites where you could donate privately, and I realised it was something I wanted to do as well. It felt more complete to me.”
He posted adverts with photographs showing off his long, blonde hair, on Dutch websites where women sought out sperm donors, explaining who he was and his motivations. Right from the start, he says the response was overwhelming. “From the moment I put up the advertisement, an hour later there were four or five emails already. That would go on the whole day,” he explains. “People think I had this plan from the start, but I thought I’d maybe help one or two people.” Instead, he says he found himself filtering through masses of responses. “I know people think I’m crazy and that I help too much, but in my opinion I was super selective,” he says. “People really don’t understand the shortage of donors.”
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