The Jeremy Kyle Show (lost unaired Steve Dymond episode of British daytime talk show; 2019)

This article has been tagged as NSFL due to its discussion of a real life suicide.

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The show's title

Status: Lost

The Jeremy Kyle Show was a UK daytime talk show hosted by English broadcaster, journalist and writer Jeremy Kyle. It typically involved Kyle and guests attempting to resolve significant issues, including DNA tests, cheating accusations, and addiction. Broadcast on ITV starting from 2005, it ran for seventeen series until it was suddenly cancelled on 15th May, 2019, following a suicide of a guest that had appeared on the show a week prior.

Steve Dymond Episode

A week before his death, 63-year-old Steve Dymond appeared on the show, he and then-fiancée Jane Callaghan requesting a lie detector following accusations of cheating against him. According to an audience member who was in attendance for the segment, initially nothing was out of the ordinary, with Kyle asking the audience whether they believed Dymond had passed the testing, the majority agreeing. However, upon Kyle revealing that Dymond had failed the test, the audience saw him "collapse to the ground", with both he and Callaghan being devastated by the results.

Despite the uncomfortable atmosphere caused by reaction to the test, Kyle became extremely critical towards the guest, branding him a "serial liar", stating he would "not trust him with a chocolate button", and even asking the audience "Has anyone got a shovel?". According to Dymond's brother Leslie, Kyle was in Steve's face, following him even after he had left the stage, and had labelled him a "failure".

Suicide And Aftermath

Following the filming of the episode, Dymond and Callaghan split up, the former becoming very despondent following his ordeal on the show. On 9 May 2019, Hampshire Police discovered his body. A coroner report indicated that Dymond had committed suicide via a morphine overdose that contributed towards left ventricular hypertrophy.

Four days after Dymond's body was discovered, ITV immediately suspended future recording and broadcasting of the show from all its channels. The Jeremy Kyle Show, already deemed a controversial show since it debuted, faced calls for it to be permanently axed from various individuals, including multiple MPs. On 15 May 2019, ITV announced the immediate cancellation of the show. The show's official website, as well as its YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts and content, were also promptly deleted, with ITV also conducting an internal review over the episode.

In November 2020, the official coroner's ruling, which was made by Jason Pegg in July that same year, deemed that Kyle's comments and overall behaviour during filming “may have caused or contributed” to Dymond’s death and deeming him to be an "interested person" in the case. It was also revealed that Dymond was unable to appear on the show previously, having lived with depression and being prescribed anti-depressant medication, with Kyle being aware of these facts.

Availability

The episode featuring Dymond was not broadcast prior to his death, with ITV confirming that the episode would not air. Footage still exists, with it being viewed by Pegg as part of the coroner's ruling. However, with the episode remaining part of a current investigation, the fact ITV has removed most traces of the show from its domain, and out of respect for Dymond and his relatives, it is extremely unlikely the episode will be available for public viewing.

Gallery

BBC News reporting on the show's cancellation and the unaired episode