I’m 43 and a father to over 1,000 children – I’m hounded and told they will have birth defects, but the ones I’ve met are happy

A RETIRED sperm donor has hit back after becoming the subject of a Netflix documentary about how he may have fathered thousands of children across the world.

Jonathan Meijer says he became a donor to help other people and have a purpose on his YouTube channel, but not everyone is happy about it.

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Now the 43-year-old is the subject of the Netflix show The Man with 1000 Kids, which features the women who used his services to have children and how it affected them.

More women in the new series accused the donor of being a narcissist with a “God complex”, claiming he deliberately underestimated how many children he had and reveled in the control he had.

But the Dutchman, who has hundreds of children aged between five and 16 around the world, told the Daily Mail his only goal was to do something meaningful with his life.

“I don’t like to use the word ‘addiction’, but you feel so rewarded, it’s absolutely wonderful,” he said.

“It’s a blessing if you can only experience it once in a lifetime, but I’ve experienced it many days, and still am, because people update me on what’s going on with their kids.”

The musician and part-time YouTuber says he has met a large number of children and claims they all seem happy, despite receiving criticism that he caused a huge risk of incest.

Jonathan added: “From what I’ve seen, the children are happy. Some have met half-siblings. They go on holiday, they meet each other.”

But in a recent video, Jonathan responded to the show’s claims that he didn’t take care to reduce the risk of inbreeding among his children.

Walking through Hollywood, he said: “All my donor children know that they are from a donor, they know my name, I chose the parents that I would help with great affection, with great care, that is, that I wanted them.

“One of my demands was that they tell the children that, firstly, they are from a donor and secondly, that I am their donor, so that means that they will always, at a certain age, very young, know my identity.

“I am an open identity donor. I did this consciously because of the inbreeding effect, to make sure this didn’t happen to them.”

The documentary features a woman’s allegation that her donor secretly mixed her reproductive fluid with that of another donor to play “sperm roulette.”

Jonathan, who taught social studies, called the claim ‘garbage’, saying he was considering suing Netflix.

But Jonathan’s main criticism is that lots of people now share the same genes and may not know it.

The risk of consanguinity – when a couple is related by blood – is increased. This can cause possible birth defects.

He insists he keeps a record of the children he has, which he estimates to be around 550, but critics say his guess is too conservative.

Jonathan began donating at age 26, but began making private donations so people wouldn’t have to pay exorbitant facility fees.

On the show, some claim he went to their house to donate sperm in a cup that women would use with a syringe to get pregnant.

One woman he contacted, Vanessa, says he ‘offered to donate in the traditional way’, which he doesn’t deny in the Netflix documentary.

Now Jonathan has been banned from donating any more sperm and risks an £85,000 fine if he breaks.