Jeremy Kyle has defended his presenting style at an inquest into the death of a man who had been a guest on his chat show, saying “it was direct, but it was empathetic, it was honest”.
Steve Dymond, from Portsmouth, Hampshire, is believed to have taken his own life seven days after filming for the Jeremy Kyle Show in May 2019.
Mr Kyle told Winchester Coroner’s Court that clips from the programme featuring the case of Mr Dymond and his partner, Jane Callaghan, showed he had “de-escalated… calmed it down”.
He also denied encouraging the audience to take against 63-year-old Mr Dymond, telling the inquest: “Not at all – I asked them to give them a round of applause.”
Mr Dymond had taken a lie detector test for the programme after being accused of cheating on Miss Callaghan, from Gosport, Hampshire.
The court was shown a number of clips from the show, including Mr Kyle telling Mr Dymond: “Be a man, grow a pair of balls and tell her the goddam truth.”
Another featured the presenter asking “Has anyone got a shovel?” as Mr Dymond attempted to explain why he had been messaging another woman.
Rachel Spearing, counsel to the inquest, asked Mr Kyle on Thursday: “Do you believe he was humiliated?”
The broadcaster replied: “I do not, and I have read over time apparently I called him a traitor – I didn’t – that he was cowering. I did what I always do and always did, it was what the show… as I understood the show is, sad as it might sound, it was a typical part.”
He added: “It was a show with my name on it, with a production team and an after-care team behind it.”
Defending his presenting style, Mr Kyle said: “I think that people who came on the show… I think the show had been on air for 15 years, and I believe the approach for conflict resolution was always the same.
“Yes, it was direct, but it was empathetic, it was honest.”
Referring to Mr Dymond’s case, Mr Kyle added: “I de-escalated, I calmed it down and I put them backstage.
“That’s what I always believed the show was about – conflict resolution.”
Mr Kyle told the court he was “not involved in the selection of guests” for the show.
He said: “I want to make a point: I have, in my 14-and-a-half years, not been involved in the selection of guests. I was employed absolutely as the presenter.”
He said he was sent a dossier the night before filming which detailed the approximately 20 guests involved in a day’s recording.
“I had no involvement in the process of selection or anything like that,” he said.
He later added: “The production, the producing, the after-care, the lie detector test were not my responsibility, I was the presenter.”
The presenter said he had created a persona for the show but had not been trained in handling emotional guests.
He said: “The show developed, it was a character, a part, by understanding that, from day one, as I keep saying, it’s conflict resolution so it involved many aspects of many stories and many different approaches.”
Mr Dymond had rung ITV 40 to 50 times in “desperate” attempts to become a guest on the show, the inquest previously heard.
He had been diagnosed with a depressive disorder in 1995 and had taken overdoses on four occasions – in January 1995, twice in December 2002 and in April 2005, the court was told.
It also heard he had attempted to harm himself in December 2002.
– The Samaritans can be contacted on 116123 or email jo@samaritans.org.
