As one of the most controversial television shows in pop culture history, those who worked on “The Jerry Springer Show” had to face some moral and ethical dilemmas behind the scenes.
In an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital, Toby Yoshimura – who stars in the recently released film a two-part Netflix documentary “Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action” – opens up about his harrowing experience as a producer, explaining why he turned alcohol and drugs as a coping mechanism and detailing the terrifying moment that ultimately forced him to leave the show.
“I’ve worked a lot on this for the last decade, multiple decades,” said Yoshimura, who worked on the show for its first season in 1991, then again from 2006 to 2008, giving himself grace after leaving the show. “I wasn’t thinking about any of that. I was trying to survive. I was trying – we were just working week in and week out to show up.”
Toby Yoshimura, producer of “The Jerry Springer Show,” turned to drugs and alcohol as a coping mechanism for the chaos that ensued behind the scenes. (Getty Images/Netflix)
Only in one particular incident did Yoshimura ask, “What am I doing?”
“It didn’t work out for me. Emotionally, the pressures of that show broke me,” he said in the documentary. “Things start to get in the way of the things you ask people to do in the name of entertainment.”
“I remember one night a woman called the show because she wanted to tell her dad to stop ordering her around on a website where she’s a whore because she’s going to be sent away and she’s going to have to do the work. It’s been going on since she was 16,” he continued. is.
“We had them under aliases in different hotels and they didn’t know where each other was,” he added. “First I went to her hotel just to see how she was doing. I knocked on the door and her dad opened it in a towel. She came to the door. You could tell she was uncomfortable. They had just finished having sex. It was like that I put two guns to my head [and] pulling the fucking trigger.”
Yoshimura told Fox News Digital that it was the last straw.
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Toby Yoshimura had his last moment in the early 90s and eventually left the show. (NETFLIX)
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“It hit me like a sledgehammer and I left the show,” he said.
“I don’t know if it became a moral problem only on a global level, but I know that I was struggling somehow to justify myself and my existence. It suddenly dawned on me: ‘What am I doing?’ And it didn’t go well, when I went to my apartment for four days and cried.”
Before he quit, Yoshimura said he turned to drugs and alcohol as a coping mechanism.
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“I had to recover a lot for myself,” he told Fox News Digital. “I don’t think I can leave my demons at the door of ‘The Jerry Springer Show.’ I had a lot of other things going on, but I think my pattern was very simple if I produced my show on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday. , and then I spin it again, prepare for the performance and then I go back again.”
“Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action” is available to stream on Netflix on January 7. (NETFLIX)
“It was almost like I didn’t want to spend a lot of time thinking about things when I wasn’t really up to my neck in my work,” he continued. “I think the drug part was just, I mean, listen, it’s a gateway. Once things stop working, you just try something else.”
He returned to the show in 2006 before quitting for good in 2008.
“The Jerry Springer Show” it launched on September 30, 1991 and ran for 27 seasons. The last episode was broadcast on July 26, 2018.
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“The Jerry Springer Show” ran for 27 seasons. (Everett Collection)
“I want to take this opportunity to apologize for everything I’ve ever done,” Springer, who died in 2023 after a short battle with pancreatic cancer, said in footage replayed in the documentary. “I destroyed the culture.”
Initially, the program started as a daily talk show. However, given the poor ratings, the producers quickly changed the script.
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“All I had to do was convince him, ‘Let’s make it wild,'” Richard Dominick, a former executive producer, said in the documentary.
Dubbed “the king of trash TV,” Springer was determined to “show the outrageous,” he said.
But behind the huge success was a wave dark secrets and controversies.
Springer passed away in 2023 after a battle with pancreatic cancer. (Getty Images)
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“The producers taught us what to say and how to behave,” said a former guest on the show at one point. “They didn’t care what effect it would have on you.”
Controversial themes included incest, bestiality, adultery, and more, while encouraging physical altercations, chair throwing, nudity, and plenty of explicit behavior.
“So listen, I mean, was it the boiler room? One hundred percent,” Yoshimura told Fox News Digital.
“The Jerry Springer Show” was at the center of controversy during its run. (Everett Collection)
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“I can say that the guests were – I don’t think they came on the show to solve their problems. I think they came on the show to face their problems, and that’s the difference. I think you know what you’re getting when you come on ‘The Jerry Springer Show.’ , right?”
Despite the chaos, Yoshimura said he “wouldn’t trade those years for anything.”
“That was a job I did 25 years ago and I’ve moved on, I’ve got a wife and a stepdaughter and they’re great,” he said. “And the biggest controversy in my life today is the Elf on the Shelf and what that damned elf has gotten himself into every morning, and it’s always something. So that’s the chaos I have today.”
As for his relationship with Springer, Yoshimura had only positive things to say about the late host.
“He was very sane in that business,” he said.
Yoshimura said Springer had a “generosity” toward him that most people were unaware of. (Getty Images)
“What I think, very rarely, very few people have experienced Jerry’s generosity, what a wonderful father he was, and just [a] big heart to everyone who came in contact with him,” he added. “It’s something I’ll never forget because Jerry defended us like we were bulletproof. And then to see him go to the ends of the earth for his daughter and his family was like nothing else in this world.”
Springer’s publicist, Linda Shafran, confirmed his death to Fox News Digital in April 2023. The TV personality died of pancreatic cancer, according to Springer’s spiritual leader and friend, Rabbi Sandford Kopnick.
“Jerry’s ability to connect with people was at the heart of his success in everything he tried, whether it was politics, broadcasting or just joking around with people on the street who wanted a photo or a word,” Jene Galvin, family spokeswoman and friend of Springer’s since 1970, according to the press release. “He is irreplaceable and his loss hurts immensely, but the memories of his intellect, heart and humor will live on.”
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“Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action,” is now available to stream on Netflix.
