Jerry Springer died in 2023, but his daughter Katie is defending his legacy no matter what. The host of the Jerry Springer Show has one daughter and she’s had a big influence on his life.
Katie Springer was born in 1976 to Micki Velton and Jerry Springer. She was born without nasal passages, a condition that was fixed through surgery. She’s also legally blind and deaf in one ear. Jerry opened up about parenting in 2006 to Access Hollywood and how her wedding inspired him to join Dancing with the Stars. “I talked with Katie about it and we thought, you know what, this could be a way to combine what I do in life, which is show business, with the wedding. But actually it’s not much different than Katie’s life.”
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He continued, “The lesson of life, which you teach your children, is that whatever hand you’re dealt, you go out there and do the best you can and you don’t worry about how good anyone else might be, you don’t worry about vanity of ‘Oh, I’m going to look silly.’ Katie lives her whole life like that, so I can do it in a dance.”
Where is Katie Springer now?
While details of Katie Springer’s life now aren’t so public, it’s known that she has one child and is married to Adam Yenkin. She worked in Chicago’s Park School as a special needs teacher in the 2000s. Jerry donated $230,000 to the school in 2006 to build a high-tech facility for students with disabilities, which was named Katie’s Corner.
Shortly after her father’s death in 2023, she talked to People about his legacy in and out of television. “I always said you had to be careful if you told dad you wanted something because you would probably get it if he could get it for you,” she told the outlet in 2024.
She recalled a time where her father bought her an apartment on a whim. “I said, ‘I saw that there were some condominiums going to be built nearby. Maybe we should just look into them,’” she recalls. “Two days later, I get a phone call from my dad. He’s like, ‘Okay, you got a two-bedroom condo. It’ll be finished in a year.’ I’m like, ‘Excuse me?’ If I said I wanted something, I’d better be real sure I actually wanted it.” That was the way he was. He was very protective of his family, and he wanted his family to have what they wanted.”
She also said that the public reception of her father was skewed. “I think people thought maybe [Jerry] was a partier and a wild guy,” says Katie. “In his home life, if he went out to a restaurant, he would order a Diet Coke and a cheeseburger. His idea of a fun day was watching baseball games on TV or reading a history book.”
Despite her father’s notorious reputation, Katie would continuously defend him and his actions. In the documentary, Chicago Sun-Times critic Robert Feder read from a letter his publication received in 1997 from Katie Springer when people accused the show of faking fights.
She wrote, “My name is Katie Springer. I’m Jerry Springer’s daughter. The City of Chicago (where “The Jerry Springer Show” was taped) seems to be in need of some facts about the man they have so slanderously dubbed the King of Sleaze. First of all, my dad has more education than many of the so-called journalists in this town. Chicago is blessed to have my dad on their team. Yes, his show is crazy, but that doesn’t mean he is. People shouldn’t judge before they listen.”
