“Jerry Springer” Producers Defend Using Underhanded 'Tactics' to Control Guests: 'They Should Feel Beholden to You'

The Jerry Springer Show took liberties with its backstage treatment of guests that were nearly as extreme as what sometimes happened on air.

In the new two-part Netflix documentary Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action, the son of one guest reveals that producers from the show threatened to withhold his mother's plane ticket home if she didn't perform on the show as they instructed her to.

Jeffrey, the son of Nancy Campbell-Panitz — who was murdered by her ex-husband after appearing on the show in 2000 with him and his new wife — says producers told Campbell-Panitz she'd be responsible for finding her own way home if she didn't go back on stage with Ralf Panitz and Eleanor Panitz after she stormed off.

Related: A Woman Appeared on The Jerry Springer Show with Her Ex and His Mistress. Then She Was Murdered.

"Backstage, she was informed that if she didn’t return to the end of the show, they wouldn’t provide her her ticket back to Florida," Jeffrey says in the documentary.

Producer Toby Yoshimura confirms that multiple producers would threaten guests in hopes of making them do what was asked of them. They also coached guests and got them riled up by goading them on backstage so they'd be amped up and angry when the cameras started rolling.

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"It was a tactic so that you as a producer had one more chance to keep them," Yoshimura says of the withholding of complimentary travel. "They should feel beholden to you, that they’re gonna let you — they’re letting you down and you’ve done all of this for them."

Jeffrey says his mother "wasn't having that."

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"She said, 'No way. You guys lied to me. I’m done.’ Somehow, she found her way to the bus station in Chicago [where the show was filmed], walking along the streets by herself. Didn’t have any money, didn’t have anywhere to go. Just her, crying," he shares, adding that eventually, "a good Samaritan" bought her a ticket home.

"As strong as she was, I’m sure she felt confused and didn’t understand what happened. After the show, no one from The Jerry Springer Show contacted to check on her, to see where she was, where she went. As far as I know, it never happened.”

Executive producer Richard Dominick says that helping guests in a serious capacity was beyond their capabilities at the time.

"We weren’t problem solvers. We’re going to give you a chance to come on, tell your story, get it all out, but we were not going to help you," he says.

Learn more about the Panitz love triangle and other memorable guests on the infamous talk show on Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera, Action, now streaming on Netflix.

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