Jones Denies Trying to Embarrass Guest

PONTIAC, Mich. — Talk show host Jenny Jones testified Monday she did not try to embarrass Jonathan Schmitz, described by lawyers as so humiliated on her show about same-sex crushes that he killed his gay secret admirer.

Jones, seen in nearly 4 million U.S. households daily, said in the $50-million wrongful death lawsuit against her producers that Schmitz showed no indication that he would later kill Scott Amedure.

On the March 1995 “Jenny Jones” show, which never aired, Scott Amedure revealed to a hooting audience his fantasy about tying up Schmitz in a hammock and covering him with whipped cream and strawberries.

“I didn’t think it would be embarrassing,” Jones told Geoffrey Fieger, the lawyer for Amedure’s family. Fieger shot back: “Apparently, you must have been wrong.”