Jerry Springer, who hosted the controversial Jerry Springer talk show from 1991 to 2018, died at his Chicago home on Thursday. TMZ reports that Springer was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer “a few months ago, and this week he took a turn for the worse.” He was 79 years old.
We’re told his cancer battle got much worse about a month ago, and he finally had to stop working. He had been hosting a folk music show on a local radio station in Cincinnati. He’s survived by his daughter Katie Springer and his older sister Evelyn.
Springer, a former politician who ran for Congress in the 1970s before becoming the mayor of Cincinnati, Ohio, got his start on TV as a political commentator before he found his true calling: dodging chairs. The more Jerry Springer leaned into sensationalism, with episodes about kung-fu hillbillies, a guy who “cut off his own male organ,” and a woman who “broke the world’s sex record,” the bigger it got. At the show’s cultural peak, it was more popular than The Oprah Winfrey Show, drawing in 12 million viewers.
After ending Jerry Springer in 2018 (spinoff The Steve Wilkos Show is still on!), Springer debuted a courtroom show, Judge Jerry, that lasted for three seasons. He’s also appeared on The X-Files, The Simpsons, and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me, and starred in Ringmaster, a movie loosely based on Jerry Springer. His final TV appearance was on The Masked Singer.
(Via TMZ)