US talk show host and former mayor, Jerry Springer, has died aged 79 following a brief illness.
Springer died peacefully at his home in suburban Chicago on Thursday, his family said in a statement.
His publicist, Linda Shafran, confirmed to People that he died of pancreatic cancer.
Springer was best known for his long-running talk show, The Jerry Springer Show, a favourite US guilty pleasure, which at one point topped Oprah Winfrey's show.
"Jerry's ability to connect with people was at the heart of his success in everything he tried whether that was politics, broadcasting or just joking with people on the street who wanted a photo or a word," Jene Galvin, a family spokesman and friend of Springer's, said in a statement.
"He's irreplaceable and his loss hurts immensely but memories of his intellect, heart and humour will live on."
Springer called the show "escapist entertainment" while others saw the show as contributing to a dumbing-down decline in the country's social values.
On his Twitter profile, Springer jokingly declared himself as "Talk show host, ringmaster of civilisation's end".
After more than 4000 episodes, the show ended in 2018, never straying from its core salaciousness: Some of its last episodes had such titles as "Stripper Sex Turned Me Straight," "Stop Pimpin' My Twin Sister" and "Hooking Up With My Therapist".
In a "Too Hot For TV" video released as his daily show neared seven million viewers in the late 1990s, Springer offered a defence against disgust.
"Look, television does not and must not create values, it's merely a picture of all that's out there - the good, the bad, the ugly," Springer said, adding: "Believe this: the politicians and companies that seek to control what each of us may watch are a far greater danger to America and our treasured freedom than any of our guests ever were or could be".
He also contended that the people on his show volunteered to be subjected to whatever ridicule or humiliation awaited them.
Before his talk show, Springer, who was born in a London underground railway station used as a bomb shelter in 1944, was elected the mayor of Cincinnati, in the US, in 1977.
He later became a local television politics reporter with popular evening commentaries.
Outside of his career, the 79-year-old shared a daughter, Katie, with his ex-wife Micki Velton, who he divorced in 1994.
Read more: A political sex scandal and deaths on his show: Inside Jerry Springer's tumultuous life.
- With AAP.
Feature Image: © Ralf-Finn Hestoft/CORBIS/Corbis/Getty.