Jerry Springer kept his aggressive cancer a family secret in his final months (2024)

Syndicated talk-show host Jerry Springer died Thursday of pancreatic cancer, according his longtime friend and family spokesman.

“While the family knew the diagnosis, he preferred the larger public not know until his passing,” Jene Galvin, Springer’s friend since 1970, said Friday in a statement to the Los Angeles Times.

“The Jerry Springer Show” host, who was 79, died at his home in the suburbs of Chicago after “a brief illness,” his family confirmed Thursday to The Times.

The lethal disease is aggressive and has the lowest survival rate of any type of cancer. According to the Mayo Clinic, pancreatic cancer is seldom detected at its early stages, when it’s most curable, because it often doesn’t cause symptoms until after it has spread to other organs. It is the third leading cause of cancer-related death in the U.S. after lung and colon cancer, according to the Hirshberg Foundation for Pancreatic Cancer Research.

Hirshberg said that in 2023 an estimated 64,050 people will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the U.S., and more than 50,550 will die from the disease.

Pancreatic cancer has claimed the lives of numerous luminaries and media icons, including “Ghost” and “Dirty Dancing” star Patrick Swayze, Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, Queen of Soul Aretha Franklin, astronaut Sally Ride and, more recently, former Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and longtime “Jeopardy!” host Alex Trebek.

Springer’s family told TMZ Thursday that that the TV star kept his health crisis private so as not to burden those who cared about him. His rep, Galvin, told the outlet that Springer only recently found out how severe the illness was and that a small circle of friends outside the family knew of his diagnosis. Galvin said that the broadcaster was sick for months and that his family focused on helping with his time-consuming care.

Springer’s broadcast acolyte and fellow talk show host Steve Wilkos, who got his start as the security director on “The Jerry Springer Show,” also told TMZ Thursday that he last saw his friend about a month ago and the veteran TV star did not mention his cancer diagnosis then. The emotional “Steve Wilkos Show” host told the outlet that Springer might have “been saying goodbye to me” and “hugged me like he never hugged me before.”

In a separate statement to The Times, Wilkos said: “Other than my father, Jerry was the most influential man in my life. Everything I have today, I owe to Jerry.”

Springer was best known for his salacious daytime program “The Jerry Springer Show,” which ran in syndication from 1991 to 2018. Before that, Springer went to law school, was an Army Reserve serviceman and, for one year, was named mayor of Cincinnati. He also worked as an aide to 1968 presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy and ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 1970 before securing a Cincinnati City Council seat in 1971.

Springer also worked in journalism before cementing himself in the American pop-culture zeitgeist as the host of the long-running “Jerry Springer Show,” a tawdry and chaotic daytime TV staple that exposed countless cheating scandals and incest and had confrontations with the Ku Klux Klan and sometimes overzealous audience members. He later starred in “Judge Jerry,” “Springer on the Radio,” the game show “Baggage” and the “Jerry Springer Podcast.” The host also made dozens of film and TV cameos as himself, briefly hosted “America’s Got Talent” and competed on the reality programs “Dancing With the Stars” and “The Masked Singer.”