The Secret Behind ‘You ARE the Father’ Is That Maury Didn’t Know Either

If you grew up sick on the couch watching daytime TV, Maury Povich was the main event. The paternity tests, the lie detectors, the reactions that launched a thousand memes—his show ran for over 30 years and basically invented the template for reality TV as we know it. 

Today, he’s 87, still instantly recognizable, and happily married to legendary journalist Connie Chung. On Good Guys, he sits down with hosts Josh Peck and Ben Soffer  and looks back on it all.

Here are the highlights, adapted from the episode.

Whose idea was it to do paternity tests?

“It was my executive producer. Her name was Amy Rosenbloom. And Amy came up with this idea. And I went, I don’t know. I just don’t know. She said, ‘No, don’t you understand? It’s just like all the soap operas. They have this theme about whether they’re the father, but it plays out over six months on the soap operas, and we can do it in 12 minutes with an answer.’”

Did you know the results before you read them?

“The first time I did the show and I knew the story and I had read about it and the show producer was briefing me right before the show and she said, ‘And the result is,’ and I said, ‘I don’t want to know the result. I don’t want to know anything more than my guests, my live audience, my audience at home.’ I would skew questions. I never want to feel that I’m more important than anybody that I’m talking to or the audience. And that’s when the whole inflection of ‘you are the father’ or ‘you are not’—it’s because I was as surprised as anyone.”

Were all those people real?

“People say, ‘Are those people real?’ I said, ‘Are you kidding? It’s part of the American fabric.’ I used to justify it. There was a New York Times Sunday story one time in the New York Times Sunday magazine, and the story was 10 percent of all kids in this country are with the wrong father. Wrong birth father. And I went, 10 percent? I couldn’t believe that.”

What’s the wildest result you ever read?

“A woman came on the show accusing a guy of being the father of her twins. And since I didn’t know the answers, I opened up the envelope and he was the father of one but not the other. Fraternal twins. And if the young lady is active over a certain period during the month, you can have two fathers…the doctors told me that it’s like a million to one shot.”

Did you ever root for a specific result?

“I would root when we would have a guy who had been on the show several times and was the father of these various kids and wouldn’t get into their lives. And so when he would come on again, I was hoping he wasn’t the father because he would never show up anyway.”

Did you ever follow up with the families years later?

“Absolutely. It’s the best part about the fact that the show lasted so long. That baby, we would bring back when she was 20 years old and whether the father got into the life. And on many occasions, not only did he get into her life but got with the woman again and had more babies…critics would say over the years, ‘You’re just exploiting this theme, you’re exploiting these people.’ I said, ‘No, I’m just trying to get these parents into these kids’ lives so that the child will have a better chance.'”

How did Jerry Springer describe the difference between your shows?

“Jerry gave me the best compliment. He said that he used to say to interviewers, ‘You don’t understand. Maury’s show is the real deal and my show is wrestling.'”

How famous was the show at its peak?

“I would walk down a construction site and a hard hat would go, ‘Hey, Maury, I’m not the father’…I was on a talk show a couple of months ago and I’m walking down the hall and all of a sudden this guy wraps his arms around me and goes, ‘You’re my man. My man.’ And I look at him and I go, ’50 Cent? Are you kidding me?’ I mean, 50 Cent watched my show…that’s royalty…

…I had all these NFL players who would tell me they’d be in the locker room before practice and the show would be on and they’re watching the show. The coaches would be up on the field waiting for them to come out. They’re late and they won’t come out until they find out who the father is. Shaquille O’Neal told me that he and his buddies used to bet on whether the guy was the father.”

Do you think your show paved the way for reality TV?

“I know for a fact there would be no Kardashians, there would be no Housewives, there would be none of those reality shows. All of them were spin-offs of our shows in the 1990s because we basically created reality TV…those reality shows spawn everything that’s going on now.”

What’s the secret to 41 years of marriage with Connie Chung?

“I think the key to our marriage is she calls me Mr. Chung…since we grew up in the same business and worked in the same business, we understood all of the pressures in the business and what we had to go through and how we had to talk each other down from the outside forces within the business.”

Listen to the full episode on Good Guys with Josh Peck and Ben Soffer, available wherever you listen to podcasts.

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