Man who went viral on Jerry Springer as '70lb baby' shares negative impact show still has on his life
The Jerry Springer Show was known for being outrageous and sensationalist
Over the 28 seasons it ran, the US talk show featured absolutely everything - from on-stage brawls to wild paternity test upsets, and pretty much everything in between.
Thousands upon thousands of guests have sat on the infamous stage over the years. Whether or not all of them have regrets about participating is unclear, but one noteworthy guest has made his feelings known.
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Zach Strenkert appeared on the show back in 1996 when he was just a toddler.
Usually, the show was known for being of a very adult nature, thanks to its reputation for cheating stories, sexually charged antics and, at one point, themes of beastiality that got the episode banned.
So you may be wondering how a tot ended up on such a vulgar show?
Well, Zach was getting a lot of attention as the '70 pound baby' and was going viral before social media had ever been heard of.
Speaking about his experiences in the new Netflix documentary Jerry Springer: Fights, Camera Action, Zach opened up about how it shaped his life.
Describing the show as 'a circus act', he admitted it left him feeling ostracized in the years that followed.
With people only knowing him as 'the 70 pound baby', he found it hard to leave his past behind him.
The reason for his large size was down to a rare genetic condition called Simpson-Golabi-Behmel Syndrome (SGBS). This condition causes rapid and excessive growth, meaning he was growing an inch and gaining two pounds a week as an infant.
By the time he was 17 months old, he was nearly 70 pounds.
It wasn’t just Jerry Springer’s show that featured him either - Zach also made appearances on Inside Edition and The Oprah Winfrey Show.
Reflecting on his period of infamy, Zach said: "They presented me as different, which only separated me from everyone else. I was known as the kid that was on TV.
"Nowadays people ask what it was like. They assume my mom was chasing fame and that wasn’t the case.
"We just wanted help with geneticists, which wasn’t easy to come by with our insurance."
The condition left him in severe pain, as he was left unable to balance properly and suffering with ‘insane’ growth spurts.
It was these struggles that pushed the family to put their show on Jerry Springer's show.
Zach said: "We didn’t really get a lot of take-home pay after all the affairs were done. It was strictly to make sure that her kid was okay."
Even all these years later, Zach is still being approached for photos on the street.
At his heaviest, he weighed 485 pounds. But nowadays, he is focused on his health and is using fitness as an outlet to ‘push through the pain’.
Ben Thompson