The internet reacts to the cancellation of ITV’s Jeremy Kyle Show

The Jeremy Kyle Show has been suspended by ITV after a guest died one week after filming an episode.

ITV said filming had been suspended and all episodes of the show, which began in 2005, have been taken off the broadcaster’s on-demand service, the ITV Hub.

Here’s what the broadcaster said.

‘Everyone at ITV and The Jeremy Kyle Show is shocked and saddened at the news of the death of a participant in the show a week after the recording of the episode they featured in and our thoughts are with their family and friends.

‘The Jeremy Kyle Show has been broadcast since 2005 and includes guests who clash over personal issues, such as extramarital affairs, addiction and family conflicts, in front of a studio audience.’

And to say people had strong feelings about the show, well, that’s probably a bit of an understatement. Here’s just a flavour of how the internet reacted.

1.

People are horrible about Jeremy Kyle but they haven't even met him. I have.
He was horrible.

— Lucie Toblerone (@msloobylou) May 13, 2019

2.

Hi I'm Jeremy Kyle. Today on the show I'll be shouting at the vulnerable during the darkest point in their lives on national television whilst an audience boos the fuck out of them. Join me in five years when we'll be shocked when one of them dies shortly after a recording.

— James Felton (@JimMFelton) May 13, 2019

3.

Perhaps the Jeremy Kyle tragedy will teach television production companies that working class people aren't exhibits in a ghastly, jeering freak show.

— Otto English (@Otto_English) May 13, 2019

4.

Now Jeremy Kyle has gone, can we fuck off every other television format designed to exploit troubled people, mock the poor, with no regard for the consequences of exposing the vulnerable to media scrutiny? Contemptible, derogatory, classist, dangerous, divisive, lazy crap.

— Jack Monroe (@BootstrapCook) May 13, 2019

5.

It shouldn't have taken someone dying for The Jeremy Kyle Show to be taken off the air. For nearly 15 years it profited from exploiting addiction, poverty and human misery. It's a damning indictment of how deeply sadistic our society is when it comes to the poor and vulnerable.

— Ash Sarkar (@AyoCaesar) May 13, 2019

6.

FINALLY the Jeremy Kyle show is over. The fetishization of working class people's poverty & misery in pop culture is grim & only others wc people & pits us against each other. Growing up, 'youll end up on Jeremy Kyle' was another classist 'you'll be flipping burgers in McDonalds'

— Tara Jane O'Reilly (@tarajaneoreilly) May 13, 2019

7.

I briefly worked at ITV in Manchester where they filmed Jeremy Kyle. Later I worked at a halfway house for mentally ill ex offenders. Two of our clients were on that show while under our care so that tells you how low producers were happy to go.

— Fern Brady (@FernBrady) May 13, 2019

8.

The Jeremy Kyle Show was always a vampiric show – all about telling its viewers it was acceptable to hate poor people. It was intended to complement a political era where punishing people on benefits became normalised as an acceptable form of prejudice. Hope it doesn’t return

— shon faye. (@shonfaye) May 13, 2019

9.

I went undercover on Jeremy Kyle show in 2008 & found a vulnerable mentally ill young man being bullied & abused. Now someone’s dead. Amazed it took this long https://t.co/aKS4o2ndyR

— Carole Cadwalladr (@carolecadwalla) May 13, 2019

And just in the interests of balance and all that, there was this.

I'm kind of conflicted about possible end of Jeremy Kyle show. Yes it's a horrible circus that made people laugh at poor people; but I never laughed because it was one of the few times I saw people like people I grew up with on telly. And I saw real need and pain and confusion

— Mark Brown (@MarkOneinFour) May 13, 2019

For all of the sensationalism and exploitation of Jeremy Kyle (which is still the dominant reason for putting poor people on telly) I also saw real human sadness and desire and people who had really got their lives in a mess. And that was still powerful for me.

— Mark Brown (@MarkOneinFour) May 13, 2019

Did Jeremy Kyle's show prey on vulnerability for scoffing viewers who love to see themselves as better than others? Of course. But, for me it also was a corner for real people's real problems in their own words. That meant something for me, even if wrapped in a wrapper of shit

— Mark Brown (@MarkOneinFour) May 13, 2019