Steve Wilkos will hold his most recent memory of late friend and mentor Jerry Springer close to his heart.<\/p>\n
The \u201cSteve Wilkos Show\u201d host spoke exclusively with Access Hollywood following the death of the talk show icon on Thursday and reflected on the last time they\u2019d seen each other and why the conversation has so much more meaning to him now.<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw Jerry a little over a month ago. It was a Wednesday, I got done taping and he sent me a text he goes, \u2018Hey, I was in New York I\u2019m coming up I\u2019d love to see ya,\u2019\u201d Wilkos recalled.<\/p>\n
The TV personality went on to remember how he felt tired that day but made sure to make plans with Jerry because they hadn\u2019t seen each other in a while. Wilkos said the gathering ended up having more emotional weight than their usual meetups but he had no idea at the time that it would ultimately be their final time together.<\/p>\n
\u201cLooking back, I really didn\u2019t think anything unusual was happening. But whenever I would see Jerry we would talk and catch up on things. We weren\u2019t two guys who sit around and talk about the glory days and rehashing old times and all that. Once in a while, but for the most part he would tell me about his grandson and what was going on in his life and I would be catching him up on my kids and we\u2019d be talking baseball. We weren\u2019t two guys who sat and looked in the past a lot. But that night, we did,\u201d Wilkos told Access.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe reflected a lot and we shared a lot of old stories and he embraced me in a way that he\u2019d never really embraced me. He gave me a hug and was telling me he loved me. I think he knew he was sick. I didn\u2019t even know he was sick until this morning because he looked the same to me,\u201d Wilkos continued. \u201cI knew there was something off, but I certainly didn\u2019t know he had a terminal illness, or whatever he had. I think this was his way of saying goodbye to me.\u201d<\/p>\n