JEREMY Kyle has opened up on the heartbreaking moment he was told about guest Steve Dymond’s tragic death.
Steve, 63, was found dead at his home on Portsmouth, Hampshire, days after filming the Jeremy Kyle show in May 2019.
It was revealed the digger driverdied of an overdose after failing a lie detector test on the hit ITV show.
Mr Dymond had failed the test after trying to prove he hadn’t cheated on his ex-fiancee Jane Callaghan.
Now, Jeremy Kyle has recalled the moment he was first told about Steve’s suicide in ITV’s Manchester studios.
Speaking exclusively to The Sun, he said: “I went to the office on the morning, I think, of the 9th, and I was sat in my dressing room and one of the show executives came in and told me the tragic news and you just think ‘Oh my God’. It was such a shock.
“Filming was cancelled, I went home and I never went back to the Manchester studios.
“I spent that weekend not knowing what to think and then rightly so, everything then about the show is pointless because all you think about is this guy being in that dreadful position.”
Jeremy also detailed the mental and physical toll the past five and a half years – since Steve took his own life – has had on him.
The humbled broadcaster was prescribed anti-depressant Citalopram in the wake of the tragedy.
He says: “Let’s not forget first and foremost somebody took their life because they were in a position where they saw no way out.
“I haven’t spoken for five and a half years out of respect because there was a legal process that dragged on and on for many reasons.
“It should never have been about me; it’s about Steve, and his family. That was my first thought when I found out.
“And then my next thought was about the hundred people that worked for the show who lost their jobs overnight – some of them even had their mortgages cancelled. I remember at the time just being in this bubble of not even understanding what had happened, but I get it. I get the criticism.
“I think everybody would probably question [themselves] when something like that happens. “You look at yourself in the mirror, of course you do. You would be inhuman not to, wouldn’t you?
“Listen, I know that I did that show to the best of my ability. I’m sure I didn’t get it right the whole time.
“But my conscience is clear. The coroner was right in that there was nothing I did or could have done to stop this tragedy. I was presenting a show. Steve had been cleared to appear by both ITV’s aftercare ream and his own GP.”
Yesterday, a coroner ruled that Steve’s appearance on the show was not linked to his death.
The court was told Steve had been “booed” by the audience at the reveal of the test results, and told a researcher after filming had finished: “I wish I was dead.”
He was later described to the court as being left “broken” and “distraught” after appearing on the show.
However, an inquest into Steve’s death ruled there was an “absence of reliable evidence” that the events on the show directly led to his death.
‘INSUFFICIENT EVIDENCE’
Steve was adamant he had been telling the truth when he took the lie detector test on the show, the court was told.
Hampshire coroner Jason Pegg concluded there was “insufficient evidence” that Kyle contributed to Steve’s adverse mental state.
Ruling a verdict of suicide, he said: “Having considered the evidence carefully there is an absence of reliable evidence that demonstrates that Steven Dymond’s appearance on the Jeremy Kyle Show probably caused or contributed to his death. To do so would be speculative.
“I am not satisfied that events on Jeremy Kyle Show gave rise to a clear link that caused or contributed to the death of Steven Dymond such that I should be recording this as a contributing factor.
“Steven Dymond had a history of a diagnosed personality disorder and mental illness which presented on a number of occasions before any appearance of the Jeremy Kyle Show and resulted in Steve Dymond self-harming or displaying thoughts of suicide.”
The inquest earlier heard Steve died from combination of an overdose and left ventricular hypertrophy – thickening of the heart – on May 9, 2019.
He had called his son Carl Woolley on the day of filming and was “very upset” claiming he had been booed by the audience.
Giving evidence during the inquest, Mr Kyle defended his presenting approach.
He told the court: “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.”