He has survived cancer and cancellation, onstage brawls and offstage upheaval in his personal life. Now it seems Jeremy Kyle, whose eponymous TV talk show once dominated the daytime broadcast schedule, may be planning a major comeback.
Documents filed at Companies House in February show that Kyle, 59, is one of five directors behind the launch of Lykeable Limited, a new television production company that will also organise, promote and manage events.
A first date is already in the diary, with the presenter set to host a show entitled Jeremy Kyle Tells It Live Like It Is at Wolverhampton Civic Hall on Saturday May 10.
The event, which is presented by Lykeable and slated to include ‘special guests’, will be part of the city’s University of Wolverhampton at The Halls series, previously graced by the likes of Queen, David Bowie and Take That.
The new company’s financial details are yet to be published, but it is possible that Kyle, the subject of an emotional interview with Kate Garraway set to be aired on Tuesday night, has financial motives for stepping up his return to the public arena.
The only other active firm listed under the presenter’s name at Companies House is Jezza Limited, which has cash of £47, 939 but owes creditors £44,587, leaving reserves of just £3,252.
The company is controlled by Kyle, who owns 85 per cent of the shares. His wife, Vicky Burton, has 10 per cent while the remaining 5 per cent are owned by Clive Brown, a chartered accountant.
Kyle is registered on the electoral roll as living in a gated housing community in Windsor, but the land registration for the property, which was bought in 2015 for £2.2 million, is in the name of another person, suggesting he may be renting.
Jeremy Kyle, left, is seen with fellow broadcaster Kate Garraway on her eponymous Life Stories. Kyle’s candid interview with Garraway will be aired on ITV1 at 9pm on Tuesday night
Kyle poses with Vicky Burton, the former nanny of his children from a previous marriage, on day two of Royal Ascot in 2018. The couple married in 2021 and now have two children
‘I understand entirely that the Kyle Show had to fall on its sword,’ the presenter told Garraway. ‘You can’t say boo to a goose now. Understandably, shows like that have gone by the by’
With six children and two divorces behind him, and a young family to care for, it would be understandable if Kyle, who currently works as a TalkTV host, felt the need to increase his earning power.
Whatever his motives for returning to the public arena six years after the cancellation of his confrontational talk show, we are certain to hear much about Kyle in the coming days and weeks.
The Jeremy Kyle Show, which first aired in 2005 and went on to run for 17 seasons, came to an abrupt conclusion in May 2019, when Steve Dymond, a 63-year-old construction worker who appeared as a guest on the show, took his life shortly after filming.
In the episode, which was never aired, Kyle told Dymond, who had set out to prove he did not cheat on his former fiancée only to fail a lie detector test, that ‘he would not trust him with a chocolate button’.
Kyle was later cleared of suggestions that ‘acts or omissions’ on his part ‘may have caused or contributed to’ the tragedy, and has admitted in a major new interview with fellow broadcaster Garraway that his show’s demise was inevitable.
‘I understand entirely that the Kyle Show had to fall on its sword,’ he said in the opening episode of Kate Garraway’s Life Stories, which will be aired on ITV1 at 9pm on Tuesday night.
‘We launched in 2005, that was just before the advent of social media – and I think that changed everything. You can’t say boo to a goose now. Understandably, shows like that have gone by the by.
‘There’s that great line, “Do you want me to lie or do you want me to be honest?” That was what people at that time craved.
Kyle leaves Winchester coroner’s court last September after giving evidence to an inquest into the death of Steve Dymond, a guest who killed himself after appearing on Kyle’s show
Kyle told Dymond, who had set out to prove he did not cheat on his former fiancée only to fail a lie detector test, that ‘he would not trust him with a chocolate button’
Kyle told Mr Dymond to ‘grow a pair of balls and tell her the God-damn truth’, the inquest heard
‘We live in a world now where people aren’t honest, are they? They’re too busy worrying about what kind of response they’re going to get.’
If those words seem to bear a trace of bitterness, Kyle’s ability to rebound from adversity should not be underestimated.
In an emotionally charged segment of his interview with Garraway, Kyle revealed how his life hung in the balance at the height of his fame after he was diagnosed with testicular cancer.
The fateful moment came in 2012, when he was referred to a specialist by his doctor. Initially embarrassed at having to take down his trousers during an assessment at the Princess Margaret hospital, a private facility in Windsor, his initial good cheer faded as the gravity of his predicament sank home.
‘I said, “It’s been lovely,” and he said, “No, you’ve got cancer – you’ve got a lump.”
‘So 20 minutes later I’m on my back and I’m being scanned. And you lie there and you think, “Geez.”‘
Within 24 hours, Kyle was undergoing surgery to have one of his testicles removed.
‘I remember walking down this corridor and this huge bloke opened the door,’ Kyle told Garraway, recalling the moments before his operation. ‘He was an anaesthetist, he was about 11ft tall.
Kyle is seen at the TV Choice awards with his second wife, Carla Germaine, who went on to divorce him on grounds of unreasonable behaviour after a 20-second court hearing in 2016
Kyle arrives at the Cheltenham Festival at Prestbury Park with his then-fiancée Vicky Burton in March 2019. ‘We were best friends,’ Kyle’s previous wife said of Burton after their split
Kyle and his first wife Kirsty, pictured in 1989. ‘The man I married wouldn’t have been out of place as a guest on his own TV show,’ she later said. ‘The programme is crass, embarrassing’
‘I collapsed into his arms and started crying. I remember thinking, “I’m dead.” I remember waking up to this amazing nurse, who stayed with me all night and held my hand.
‘I was terrified. I thought if she went out of the door and the light went out, that was it. I thought I was dead.’
It was a near-run thing – the tumour was found to be 90 per cent toxic, close to the point that would have seen the cancer spread – but Kyle went on to make a full recovery.
Neither is that the only storm he has weathered.
Kyle’s private life became the focus of public scrutiny in 2015 after he split with his second wife, Carla Germaine, 13 years after they first tied the knot.
The couple had three children – Alice, now 21, Ava, 19, and 16-year-old son Henry – but the relationship ended on a bitter note when Germaine divorced him on grounds of unreasonable behaviour during a 20-second court hearing in February 2016.
To Germaine’s evident dismay, Kyle subsequently began a relationship with his children’s former nanny, Vicky Burton.
‘We were best friends,’ Germaine said of Burton, who had joined the couple on a family holiday to Barbados in 2013. ‘But I haven’t heard anything from her. I don’t know whether I suspected something was going on before.
Once a household name, Kyle now works as a host for TalkTV, but appears eager to expand his activities with the launch of Lykeable Limited, a new television production company
Kyle and his second wife Carla met when he was working in a Birmingham radio station and she took part in a competition to marry a stranger
‘What about our children? Why would he let it go public? I’ve got our three children to protect and this was their nanny. There are moral boundaries and integrity.’
Kyle went on to marry Burton in 2021 and they now have two children, Oliver and Iris, the latter of whom celebrated her first birthday in January.
A previous marriage to Kirsty Rowley foundered due to a gambling addiction. The couple’s daughter, Harriet, was five months old when they split, and Rowley later offered a withering verdict on her former husband.
‘The man I married wouldn’t have been out of place as a guest on his own TV show,’ she said. ‘The programme is crass, it’s embarrassing – and for Jeremy to go on there acting like some kind of agony uncle is sheer hypocrisy. He was a liar.
‘I just wish I had been able to give him one of his own lie-detector tests.’
It is the kind of colourful history that would once have been grist to the mill for his show, which at the height of its popularity commanded a one-million strong audience.
Kyle created a niche as the scourge of the unfortunate, the feckless and the hopeless, and he told Garraway that, for all the controversy that accompanied his success, he takes enduring pride in the longevity of a series that ran for 3,320 episodes.
‘I’m immensely proud of those numbers of episodes, taking it to America and the people that we genuinely helped,’ said Kyle.
But after all the paternity tests and offers of rehab and counselling to those who shared their tawdry troubles with him, it is now the presenter himself who seems to be struggling to find his feet – quite literally.
Having taken a tumble as he walked out on stage for his interview with Garraway, Kyle chastised himself in terms that some viewers once levelled at his show.
‘Clumsy and idiotic,’ he mused after his entrance was reshot.
