With his “On Par” podcast and memes going viral on social media, Maury Povich tells USA TODAY about his legacy – and his future.
Maury Povich talks fame, 50 Cent hug and dream guests like Jay-Z
Maury Povich shares a surprise hug from 50 Cent and names Jay-Z as a dream guest for his podcast.
NEW YORK — Maury Povich has the chills.
Though a star in his own right and a talk show icon to generations of daytime TV viewers, Povich doesn’t view himself as a celebrity. But since launching his “On Par” podcast in 2025, he’s realizing just how many people “Maury” the show (and Maury the man) impacted.
“What surprised me more than anything else was that so many people knew who I was. I never realized that,” Povich, 86, tells USA TODAY. “I would interview hip-hop artists, and the next thing I know, I’m in their lyrics. I interviewed actors who watch the show, athletes who watch the show in the clubhouse and won’t come to practice ’til they find out who the father is.”
On this particular day, Povich is pinching himself after a run-in with an unexpected fan: hip-hop mogul 50 Cent.
“I’m walking down the aisle, and all of a sudden this guy wants to give me a big hug. It’s 50 Cent, and I’m going, ‘Are you kidding?’,” Povich says. “I just never believed that my name or my personality extended so far.”
After the chance encounter at a taping of Sherri Shepherd’s daytime talk show, Povich is adding the multihyphenate to his list of must-have guests for the podcast (joining wish-list stars like Jay-Z, Shaquille O’Neal and, perhaps reaching for the stars, a Cardi B-Nicki Minaj joint interview to “settle their differences”).
“On Par,” which launched Season 2 in early December, has given Povich the chance to do something that years of talk show hosting never allowed: talk about himself. While he’s been “known,” most fans haven’t gotten to see the real him. Conversing with celebrity guests – everyone from William H. Macy and “Today” show host Craig Melvin to NBA All-Star Andre Drummond – has opened that door.
“For the first time in six decades of being in this business, I can talk about myself. I’ve never been able to do that,” Povich says. “And in a podcast you can talk about things that you went through, your experiences, and compare them with the experiences of my guests.”
Maury Povich calls Connie Chung his ‘go-to personality’
His wife of four decades, veteran newswoman Connie Chung, was the first guest on the podcast. But Povich interviewed her somewhat begrudgingly.
“I didn’t want her on, but I was overruled,” he says. His reasoning? “Because you never know what she’s going to say. That’s the way we’ve lived our life for 41 years. You just never know what she’s going to do or say, so I’m completely surprised.”
Povich says “nobody ever heard of the word” podcast during his earlier career years as a TV journalist doing local news around the country before landing his “Maury” precursor, tabloid newsmagazine “A Current Affair.”
“I started in journalism and news, and so my wife was saying, ‘Nobody knows about the 25 years before you started determining the paternity of every kid in the country. So why don’t you go back and show people you’ve got your chops, and you can interview people from all facts of life?'” He says her main piece of advice was, “Don’t make me look like an idiot.”
Within the tough love, there’s a lot of love love for the two newsmakers, who’ve been married since 1984.
“She’s been my go-to personality all these years. I have always thought of myself as Mr. Chung, and I still do,” he says. “She was a big star way before I ever was, and I don’t mind.”
Maury memes, podcast show enduring legacy
In the next phase of his career, Povich has become something of a social media star, joining in on viral TikTok trends, racking up new fans who are discovering clips from “Maury” and finding original viewers still yelling “You are not the father!” to trending audio moments from the talk show.
“I always believed that I was nothing more than an extension of my audience. I would ask the same questions my audience would if they had the chance,” he says. “I really kind of downplayed ego stuff. I’ve seen it so many times working, for instance, co-anchoring with people who had all these big egos. My wife and I like to call it ‘big shot-itis,’ and we kind of stayed away from that all of our lives.”
It boils down to quality, Povich says.
“All my life, the main thread has been being a storyteller,” says Povich, who received a Lifetime Achievement award at the 50th Daytime Emmy Creative Arts and Lifestyle Awards in 2023.
His storytelling began to have a flair for the dramatics of daytime TV during the “Maury Povich Show” era, in its lifespan from 1991 to 2022.
Povich says “one of the great things about the show,” beyond “the fact that I was the longest-running daytime talk show host in history,” is that “nobody did it better in terms of DNA and lie detector tests.”
“A lot of people have tried, but I don’t think that any show did it better than we did,” he says.
He recalls shocks, like discovering that a pregnant guest’s twins each belonged to two different fathers. But he thinks fondly of a dad who rejoined the mother of his child, got married, had more kids and stayed together for the long haul.
Povich recalls “criticism from media critics” that he was “exploiting” show guests. “I always said, ‘I don’t think I’m exploiting my guests.’ I mean, I’m trying to get a guy who denies that they’re the father of this child – and I prove that they are the father – into the life of this child, because that child is going to have a better chance at life with two parents than one.
“And I hang my hat on what I’ve done. I believe that’s true. And because I was on the air so long, I could bring these families back 20 years later, and find out that this guy did get into the life of the child.”
Povich’s barometer for success has evolved over time. Now it’s that “I’m upright and that I can walk around, I can play golf and I can still think on my two feet.”
But he recalls an earlier era, before the fame. “I started when I was 16 years old as an assistant producer to the Washington Senators baseball broadcaster in TV and radio. And then I got into the business after college, and I said, ‘Look, if I can stay in this business ’til I’m 50, I’ll consider myself a success,'” he says. “And that was 35 [years that] I lasted. Now, 36 years later, I’m still trying to handle this.”