Freaks trashed my love life; Jerry Springer reveals how he finds it impossible to start a relationship because he's famous. By Vicki Grimshaw.

Byline: Vicki Grimshaw

Life should be terrific for Jerry Springer, but for all the fame and fortune that has come his way, the multi-millionaire chat show host is actually quite a lonely guy. Separated from his wife with a grown-up daughter, he admits that finding romance, or even making new friends, is difficult.

"I'm either a loner or people are very close to me," says Springer, who is standing in for Matthew Wright on the Channel 5 show The Wright Stuff. "I stick with people I am comfortable with. It's very hard if you are in the public eye to have any substance to a relationship because you don't have an incredible amount of time to develop it, romantically or as a friendship."

Jerry admits that being a high-profile chat show host - especially on a programme covering topics such as I Married My Horse and They Stole My Husband's Eyes - is actually a drawback when it comes to starting a new relationship.

Although he admits loneliness, Jerry could certainly have his pick of women and gets a huge postbag of fan mail every week from adoring ladies. He may say his fame gets in the way of romance, but he has had plenty of spicy encounters since splitting from his wife of 25 years, Micki Veltern. Tales of his liaisons include his infamous romp with a 21-year-old pornographic actress and her stepmother who'd appeared on his show.

"For the last 30 years I've been a public figure, as a mayor, a newsman and a talk show host," he says. "People know me straight away as the TV guy so we are not starting off on a level footing. They already know a bunch of stuff about me whereas I don't know them at all.

"When you get to the mutual interests, it's all about, `What's the show like? Is it real?' and invariably they are going to go home afterwards and tell all their friends, `I met Jerry Springer'. So you will never find someone who will just say, `Hey, I just met this really nice guy, you should meet him'."

For the last few years, Jerry, 58, has split his time between his home in Chicago and the UK. Born in 1944 in Hampstead, London, his parents emigrated to New York five years later. Remarkably, he still has six close friends from his early days growing up in the States. They are now a mixture of lawyers and doctors, and they get together every two years for a reunion.

"I think I'm pretty grounded," says Jerry. "I don't live in Hollywood, I don't have any celebrity friends and I don't have a lot of pressure to stay down to earth. I have a mirror for that."

But there's more to Springer than trying to keep apart bunches of trailer trash nuts and sluts, hell-bent on killing each other on prime-time TV. The possessor of a law degree, the former mayor of Cincinnati has now landed himself a role in a big-budget movie.

Called Citizen Jury, it is set in a New Orleans court room where the trials are televised and the viewing public play the jury.

Playing opposite Hollywood star Christopher Lambert, Springer is a crooked TV boss who tries to increase the ratings by fixing the verdicts so that the defendants are always found guilty. The film - by Stephen Soderbergh, who won a best director Oscar for Traffic last year - begins shooting this summer in New Orleans and South Africa, and Springer will take a couple of months out of his TV work travelling between the two locations.

Before that, Jerry is standing in this week for former Mirror journalist Matthew Wright on his daily morning debate show The Wright Stuff. He will also be a regular guest in the autumn after committing himself to the show for a year. In addition, he's signed up for another four years of The Jerry Springer Show.

"There is really no reason to stop," he says. "I still enjoy it. I have fun, it's not hard work and it doesn't require a lot of me. If I could find a particular reason to stop then I would. It's so popular because it's so stupid. No one takes it seriously. It's just an escape."

But surely it couldn't get any more outrageous?

"That's up to people," says Jerry shrugging. "Our show is about the outrageous. We don't pick the subjects. People phone in with their stories, and what used to be considered outrageous is slowly becoming the norm. I remember how people were shocked when The Beatles first appeared with their long hair. Now that's considered short hair."

So, is there any chance that we'll be meeting more people who've married a horse?

"God, I hope not," he laughs.

l Jerry Springer presents The Wright Stuff, Monday-Thursday, C5, 10am.

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LONELY: Jerry has fame but not a partner