Many industries can be competitive, and the talk show industry is no exception. Jerry Springer’s talk show, The Jerry Springer Show, gained so much traction it made history for toppling The Oprah Winfrey Show in the ratings.
Oprah Winfrey, 70, made no efforts to hide that she didn’t enjoy this shift, calling the show “appalling.” She had a long-running feud with Springer and his producers hit out at her in Springer’s Netflix Documentary.
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Oprah made it no secret
Springer’s talk show aired from 1991 to 2018 and gained considerable traction in the late ’90s due to its controversial nature.
Winfrey was asked about her opinion on the show and the host who sadly died in 2023 after battling pancreatic cancer and she showed no mercy.
The fuel to the fire
It all started when Oprah talked about the show, saying: “Jerry Springer is in a class all by himself, if you want to call that a class. I think he just is – he’s out, he’s gone, that whole show, I think it’s appalling. I can’t believe what I’m seeing.”
She thought the show was too much
In a 1999 interview published in the Sunday Times of London, she exploded, saying: “We will see sexual intercourse on television. And I would not be surprised if one person actually kills another.”
She continued with her predictions, telling them: “I am in disbelief about things that are happening on television talk shows. How low can it get? Can public taste keep on sinking? Yes, it can. I have to get out.”
She was too tired of what the industry had come to
“I am all talked out. My contract has two years left, then I am getting out of such shows, because I feel they are going to burn themselves out,” she continued.
And about Springer, she bluntly said: “Up until a few months ago, I felt that Jerry Springer was giving us some serious competition but I don’t think it is sustainable because his show is such a vulgarity circus.”
She was not a fan of what happened on the show
“Unless you are going to kill people on the air, and not just hit them on the head with chairs, and unless you are going to have sexual intercourse – and not just, as I saw the other day, a guy pulling down his pants and pulling out his p––– – then there comes a point when you have oversaturated yourself,” she explained.
Winfrey predicted the fatality
Nancy Campbell-Panitz and ex-husband Ralf Panitz were on The Jerry Springer Show in May 2000. Unfortunately, two months later, Ralf murdered Nancy.
Nancy and Ralf were part of a love triangle storyline on the mouth-dropping show.
Springer killed Winfrey with kindness
While Winfrey threw nothing but daggers with her words at Springer, Springer showed her nothing but respect the whole time, telling the New York Post: “It’s fine, I really like Oprah. She’s great. I know she doesn’t like my show, but that’s OK. My mum wouldn’t have liked this show, either – and I loved her.”
This wasn’t the only instance of praise
Springer told ET Online in 2011 when Winfrey stepped down from her show: “It is the end of an era. She is the best that has ever been – Oprah and Phil Donahue. Donahue created [the genre] and she perfected it.”
“There will never be another talk show like hers, or have the same impact – at least not in the foreseeable future,” he continued.
Springer may have been lenient, but his producers weren’t
The former show’s producers broke their silence about the ruthless words that Oprah delivered throughout the years in the Netflix documentary, Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action.
Producer Toby Yoshimura said: “Oprah would say: ‘Why would Jerry put those guests on?’ Jerry didn’t put those guests on, I put those guests on. You’re yelling at the wrong guy.”
They deemed her behavior “inappropriate”
Yoshimura continued, saying: “The way that Oprah behaved compared to the way Jerry behaved? Jerry was class act. He gave her the right of way and she punched back. It was so inappropriate.”
Executive producer Richard Dominick had a few words to say about Springer and Winfrey as well, adding: “He was a great man and a gentleman and I felt like she needed to be taught a lesson – that’s when we went after her and that’s when I could taste the blood.”
