There is no doubt that our shows in the 90s and early 2000s spawned all the Housewives shows, all the Kardashians, any kind of reality show now on cable was all sparked by our shows. 31 years, we never got faked on the air. You are not. You are not. You are not the father. Five words that turned daytime television into a cultural obsession. He outlasted every trend, every network, every critic. Now at 87, Maury Povich is doing it all over again. The thread for my entire career was I was chasing other people's stories. I was never able to kind of reveal myself. And so with the podcast, I feel unchained. Today we find out what fuels him at 87 and why he's not done talking. I want to do everything my brother did. I thought that was the nicest thing anybody has ever said to me, that my brother, who I looked up to all of my life, thought that I was his hero. I can even tear up about that. I've spent the last couple of years talking to the New York Times about my obituary, which is written. I don't think I've told anybody this, Daniel. so maury povich the obvious thing is i'm gonna have to say the phrase that that really puts you on the map which i'm sure at this point you could be annoyed hearing this because you've probably heard it so many times but there's a reason why i'm gonna say it so you are not the father is the phrase that everyone knows you by or it could be you are the father depending on the episode however what i want to know though is what emotions what feelings what thoughts come to mind every time somebody says that to you well uh i consider it a it's a badge of honor to me it's it means that uh if people say that to me that means that i'm i'm part of their culture and so So that means that the show had some penetration and and that they either watch that show for entertainment or for information or for knowledge or for as Shaquille O'Neal used to say, he and his buddies used to bet on whether the guy was the father or not. So I'm curious about how it was at this time. I mean, I've seen documentaries about your friend Springer and about how things were during that time for them. How was it for you, though, behind the scenes of creating this machine? I was very proud of the way we came up with our themes and the way we employed them. My show, we had production teams, and it was like being in a newsroom. They had to check out these people who wanted to come on. Obviously, the 800 number helped with whether it be DNA or lie detector tests or out-of-control teenagers. And so these producing teams would check every story out. And I can say in 31 years, we never got faked on the air. Sometimes we got faked before the show ever started and we sent the guests home. But we never got faked on the air. And so I applaud the way we handled things. Jerry's show was different. But Jerry kind of gave me the best compliment I ever had when he would publicly say, you know, Mari, your show is the real deal and my show is wrestling. And so that's how I differentiated it. So how did that go? Because I've heard that you became friends at some point. I guess you were kind of like rivals, essentially. Jerry and I, we started the same month in the same year, 1991. That's when he started his show, I started my show, and we would, and both admitted, back then in the beginning, the shows were very kind of tame. I mean, they were just afternoon or morning versions of the Today Show. We would do topics, we would, I mean, our, you know, You know, if there was an edginess to it, it would be, you know, I have a favorite crushes, things like that. I mean, that would be as far as we would push the envelope. Pretty tame next to where we ended up. At what point did you realize, like, in order for this to really take off like a rocket ship, we need to, you know, we need to move the needle over here? I think one of the reasons we changed was when Ricky Lake, who, by the way, is our guest this week on the podcast. I hadn't seen Ricky. Yeah. And so Ricky came in and she, first of all, most of us were in our 40s and 50s doing the show in the early 90s. Ricky was 24 years old when she started. and she was able to do something we couldn't do. And that was get a young audience to watch. You know, the average age of our audience was probably near 50 and she was getting kids to watch daytime talk. And so therefore we had to start doing some subject matter which would appeal to a younger group. And so I'd say about six or seven years into the show is when we started with the themes of paternity and lie detectors and out-of-control teenagers. So it seems like, you know, basically it was the beginning phases of reality TV, which I know people have mentioned to you before. Like you were the pioneer, one of the pioneers of reality TV. And it seems like whether it was reality TV then or how shows are now on YouTube, you always have to come up with something new. You always have to push the envelope. It's almost like you had to create virality on TV before, you know, virality now is more of an Internet thing. So what was the secret sauce behind like continuing to do this? Well, first of all, there is no doubt that our shows in the 90s and early 2000 spawned all the Housewives shows, all the Kardashians, any kind of reality show now on cable, was all sparked by our shows, the first reality shows of the 90s and 2000s. That's, I mean, you can just trace it. I mean, that's the thread. Now, when it comes today, YouTube, now including AI, it's one of these things where you never know I saw the other day and this went viral millions of looks there was an AI there was an AI Instagram of Mike Vrabel and Diana Russini coming on my show and there and I was going to determine whether he was the father of one of her children and it was all AI and they had my set a year and a half ago I was going through one of the hardest periods of my life I was dealing with anxiety depression brain fog and a huge part of it was because I was not sleeping my schedule was brutal late nights early mornings constantly pushing my body I tried everything but nothing really worked then someone introduced me to magnesium breakthrough by BiOptimizer. Night one changed everything. I had the best sleep I had in years. I woke up feeling calmer, clearer, and more rested. I even started having these vivid dreams again, which made me feel like my body was finally getting real sleep. What I love about Magnesium Breakthrough is that it's not just one form of magnesium. It has seven forms designed as a multi-delivery magnesium system to support absorption, tolerability, and how magnesium is delivered in the body. I've taken it for the last year and a half, and I was a fan long before they sponsored the show. So if sleep, stress, or recovery is something you're working on, I say check out Magnesium Breakthrough by Bioptimizer. You can get it at bioptimizers.com. Huge thank you to Bioptimizer for supporting the show. They had everything. I mean, it was so real that my sister called me and said, did this happen and i went no it didn't happen well don't you think you should apologize i said i'm not apologizing it's ai you know that's what it is and so therefore when you go on youtube today you got to figure it out whether it's real or not it's almost scary right like it it's it's really it's entertaining but it also is so scary because people have sent me many videos and I'm like, this is definitely AI. And they're shocked. They're like, this is a I am like, you can't tell this is yes, this is AI. These are like very smart, digitally focused people. I like can you imagine the people that aren as smart or digitally focused They don know They could be easily manipulated What do you think about that Yeah I mean it going to cause it a quandary with AI because it really does look real in a lot of ways I mean, I know there are great benefits to AI. I know what doctors say, that AI is going to make sure that we all live longer. In terms of medicine, it's going to be spectacular. It's going to give a lot of professions shortcuts to success, and that's fine. But when it comes down to the Internet, and we all use it, we all look at it, you're going to have to decipher whether it's real or not. I mean, you're like in your 60s, right? But you look like you're in your 40s. You could live through 100. You might only be halfway done. Oh, gosh. You might have. I'm in my 88th year. I mean, I'm just. Wow. I never would have. I hope I'm like you when I'm 88. Well, I'm going to be 88. I'm 87. I'm going to be 88 in about six months. What's been? Is it Connie? that's been like the rock that's why you look so good and why you have so much energy because my wife makes fun to me that I have like 80 year old knees and I'm in my 40s but what is it for you that I mean I love your you have this love for life I can tell and I love that you love I could tell you really love your wife at the same time and you're in your 80s yeah I've always said that If you ever looked at my career where, you know, I did television news in various cities over the years, local news. And I, we didn't, we got married in 1984. And right after that, Rupert Murdoch bought the local station I worked at in Washington. And my whole national career from 1986 on, I firmly believe it's because I married my wife. I there are many people, particularly in New York. I mean, I've you know, I've been Mr. Chung for 40, almost 42 years. So I wear that proudly. So obviously she's an extremely celebrated journalist. Incredibly, like you said, honorary Ph.D. Always seemed very serious to me when I would watch her serious exposés. you on the other hand seem always I don't want to say comedic in a bad way but you're humorous you're fun like what was it like sitting at that dinner table between the two of you well believe it or not she is much funnier than I am and uh that I mean she has one of the great sense senses of humor uh she is uh uh you never know what's going to come out of her mouth I mean, I had her on my first podcast on par with Mari Povett. She was my first guest. I didn't know it was going to happen. You never know what's happening with her. I mean, she can be, when it comes to me, she can be very insulting and do it in a humorous way. And I'm much more serious personally than she is. But we've always, I mean, our axiom has always been we always took our work seriously and never took ourselves seriously. And so we really don't take each other seriously. I love that. Maybe that's why you're nice. You know, there is no way. You can never have a full chest with each other. You just, you always got to be, you always got to be ready for the insult. There's a little cut here and a cut there. I like that. My wife told me that she thought I was really weird when she first met me, but the weirdness was also funny. And she liked that part. I think, I think she was attracted to the humor, not to my fading hairline at that time. It kind of reminds me of like misconceptions. Do you think there's misconceptions about you? Well, I'll tell you, there might have been only because, I mean, the thread, Daniel, for my entire career was, you know, I was chasing other people's stories. I was always looking at events. It was never about me. When I did the talk show, it was about the guests. It was about their stories. I was never able to kind of reveal myself. And so with the podcast, it's great. I mean, I feel unchained. I can, if I talk to a guest, for instance, about them being fired at some point, I say, well, let me tell you about when I was fired. Let me tell you about the list of guys who I didn't get along with, who were my general managers at various stations. And I had a list, you know, a revenge list and things like that. And so they said, well, did you ever get revenge? And I said, well, believe it or not, every single time, I had about five people on the list. I said, every single time, you know, I was looking for revenge at one point or another, they all got fired. And I felt sorry for them. I was so mad that I felt sorry for them instead of seeking revenge. Because I just, you know, I just know what it's like to be fired. It's not pretty. I've been fired. And you know, the last time I got fired, my manager who fired me also got fired like a day after I got fired. But it was the best thing ever. Honestly, it was I was miserable anyways. So you obviously have a lot of wisdom and I'm sure you've gotten to meet and I've heard some some great stories about the people that you've met in your life. But is there anyone who you've met doing this podcast or is there something that you're looking to take away or learn from these people? Some of the most successful podcasts we've done are with comedians. And I'm just fascinated by comedians because I think when you take a look at their work, you're taking a look at the present around the world or in our country, what the present is like. I think comedians reflect that more than anything else. And what I'm so excited about is, in my younger days, I was very lucky to have interviewed people like George Carlin and Richard Pryor and Mel Brooks and Don Rickles. That was my generation of comedy. And now I have all these kind of youngish comics in their 30s and early 40s, like Josh Johnson and Adam Friedland and Dan Soder and Mark Norman. And next week I'm going to I just interviewed him. He's very, very funny. Giannis Pappas. So, I mean, all these young guys, young to me, 30s. Leanne Morgan, a little older. I think it's fascinating to kind of look at the world through their eyes and how they perform. We have a Josh Johnson who can go two minutes. I've compared him to George Carlin. He can go two minutes telling a story without a laugh, and he's fine with that. And yet a guy like Mark Norman, I mean, he's a machine gun. And so I'm fascinated with the various ways they get their comedy across. I mean, it almost saddens me that you said they're in their 30s and they're younger and they're in their 30s. And they're also younger than me because I see myself as 20. I don't know. But when you you talked about some legends, I've always been obsessed with comedy. It was really my way to escape reality. So all those people, I've loved all the things that they've done. Is there a time where you met one of them? Something interesting? I don't know. Maybe you learned something you discussed. I'll tell you. Mel Brooks was great. I was doing a talk show in Philadelphia. I was anchoring and doing a talk show called People Are Talking. And so Mel, I think, is coming. Maybe one of his movies or something. This is early 80s. So he comes on the show. And he's so funny. He's so, so funny. And so I said, so what do you do, Mel? What do you do for your off time? What do you do? I play tennis. Oh, you really? You play tennis? Oh, yeah, we go to Merv's house. Merv? Merv Griffin. We go to Merv's, the four of us. I said, well, who's there? He says, well, it's me and Corman and Dom Deluise and Merv. And we all play. And that's what we do. And I said, you play three times a week. I said, oh, I don't believe it. He says, let's get him on the phone. So now I got DeLuise and Corman and Verve on the phone with Mel on my local talk show in Philadelphia And it hilarious Spaceballs was one of my favorite movies Like I can recite so many lines but no one ever knows what I talking about sadly I heard they're going to make another one. I don't know if they ever will. One I remember more than any is Blazing Saddles, because I had this, my son, who is now 30-something, 30, whatever, and when he's four or five years old, I put blazing saddles on, and it's the first time he ever laughed at a movie at the fireside scene when everybody is farting. My four-year-old starts laughing crazily because he's hearing all these farts at the campfire scene with the beans. I remember that, too, by the way. I love that movie. Why do you think farts are so funny? I don't know what is it because it just seems like it doesn't matter. I think if you went back 200 years and you farted, people thought it was funny then. Yeah, it is. And worse, the most amazing thing is you can be 80 or you could be five. And it's the same reaction. Like there could be a show of just people farting. Like the whole goal, like you talk. Like we could have a serious conversation, but we're just like also passing gas. But you can't laugh. that would be a good episode by the way yeah that would yeah i'd like you could take that and you don't have to give me credit uh i heard that you love montana and you love montana but you love golf and then you also love your show on par i went to montana a few times my sister went to college there where in missoula or bozeman bozeman so we went out there we took her there Montana State. I was like, wow, this sky is so big. And then my wife and I went there during COVID on a few different road trips. What do you love about Montana? Well, I have to differentiate myself and all the people, all the kind of rich people who moved to Montana during COVID wanted to get out of these cities. And they went down there near Bozeman and South Central Montana and built these big homes, which I don't understand, in a gated community. You can't say gated community and Montana. I mean, just can't do that. So this is what I'm proud of. We went to Montana 30 years ago, and we've been there that long. And we went not down there, but our place is near Glacier National Park, way up high, and then almost, you know, 50 minutes from Canada. And so, and we live on our own mountain. And it's my son. Our son lives there. He owns a machine shop. And I, you know, I go miles before I see my neighbor. It's if you want to if you want to be very restive and you're craving for silence, that's the way to do it. By the way, not only are you a pioneer in TV, you're also a pioneer of Montana. Do you love silence, recharging, or do you love more being around people, being more extroverted? No. One of the reasons why I like golf is that even though you're playing with people, there's a sense of solitude. First of all, you have no one to blame or praise than yourself when you're playing golf. One of the reasons why I like golf is if I'm playing with someone, I can tell you in 18 holes whether I want to be with this person again. Because every single morsel of your character will come out on a golf course. all the demons uh all the niceness uh all the good all the bad all the ugly will be reflected in 18 holes of golf and i can tell you whether i want to be with these people again uh as to how they demonstrate themselves during that round wow i i've never i've only played like happy gilmore type golf i've never done anything serious but yeah i think i need to do you not to get too serious, but is there anything that scares you? If I was broke, I'd be scared. My family grew up, we were, I guess we were called middle class, but there wasn't a lot of extra stuff going on in our lives. I mean, everything was done because every dime was, everything that my father made was spent. There wasn't much of a cushion. And so I believe it or not, when I first got my television jobs in like the mid 1960s, I said to myself, if I could make $50,000 a year for the rest of my life, boy, would I be happy. I mean, how unrealistic did that become? And so, I mean, that's the way we thought back then. Money, especially in the news business, we didn't make a lot of money. I mean, when I got married, my wife was making 10 times the amount of money I was. Did the feeling of not wanting to go back to that or maybe not wanting to have that for your future family, did this inspire you? Sure. Absolutely. So I know you and your brother David, from what I've read, were inseparable. Sadly, you lost him a few years ago. What memories or what do you think about? What's a special moment that comes to mind when you think about him? Well, I saluted him this year because he died at 87. And I wanted to be able to reach his age. so when I turned 87 this year I said David here I am and I'm still here and I know that you would love to see me right now at 87 my my brother we were very fortunate family uh my father was the sports writer for the Washington Post for 75 years and we grew up with me and my brother and my younger sister, my older brother, David, my younger sister, Lynn, and I was in the middle. And I swear to God, Daniel, I don't know if families are like this, but I always felt that my brother was the most favored kid in the family. My brother thought that my sister was the most favored kid in the family. And my sister thought that I was the most favored kid in the family. So that's how we grew up. I mean, we kind of grew up as equals, but my brother, who ended up being one of the really great lawyers in the world, my brother was my hero. I was known growing up as Me Too Povich because everything my brother did, I said to my parents, me too, me too. I want to do everything my brother did. And the most fortunate part about it is as as I got, as an adult, got more successful and did all these things, my brother thought that I was his hero. And I just couldn't, I mean, I thought that was the nicest thing anybody has ever said to me that my brother, who I looked up to all of my life, thought that I was his hero in later years. And I can even tear up about that. How special. It reminds me. So my dad's brother just passed away. But the same thing, my dad is going to be nearing his age. And he said the same. He's the same thing because his dad and my grandfather passed away at this exact same age. So he always tells me when he talks to me on the phone like you know as i'm nearing this age that seems to be the end and i'm like what a fascinating what so life is very fascinating right like full circles i was just going to say the one thing that my father forgot to tell us and it's interesting my father was the seventh of nine children grew up in born in bar harbor maine spanish youth in bar harbor and bath main. He was the last of his clan. Everybody had died before him, all of his brothers and sisters. He was the last. He was the last of my mother was one of nine. And so all of her people had gone. That generation always kept their grief inside them for some reason, never showing it. And I really would have liked my father to teach me how to grieve, because I now have to do it on my own and I don I have to All I know is that that with my brother and with my friends and with my parents I I grieve and I get very emotional about it But I sure would have liked to have known how they did it. When you think of like your grandkids or nephews, nieces, at some point you're going to be Googled. someone's going to google you one day maybe they watch your ai avatar talking to them but what do you hope that they understand that maybe the internet and then maybe your ai avatar won't tell them about you well first of all my youngest grandchild is 20 so they've all gone they've gone through the marley show for years uh they now watch the podcast uh one of my grand nephews uh works on the podcast. My nephew, one of my nephews, believe it or not, was my director on the talk show for the last 10 years of the talk show. So all of my grandkids now, they don't have to look me up. But I will say, I don't think I've told anybody this, Daniel. I get a call from the New York Times about four or five years ago. And this guy, who I find out later on is a terrific writer, is calling me because they want to write my obit. And I went, ooh, wow, this is interesting. So I've spent the last couple of years talking to the New York Times about my obituary, which is written. And the only thing I got very pissed off about was I finally asked the writer, how about can I see it? Can I see my obit? I would love to see my obit. He said, we can't show you that. Are you kidding me? This is the New York Times. We don't show people what we write. I said, does that mean I'm going to have to read about it after I die? He said, yeah, that's the way it's going to be. That my obit's already written? You know what I said to myself? Well, then if that's the case, let's have the funeral right now so that everybody can stand up and say all these things about me and i can listen do you think that that with the journalism change with the media change obviously used to be you had to work for a network you had to write for a publication um you have this transition now where instead of people writing about and talking about like you said in the beginning now they're free they can they can leave those they can go on their own talk about whatever they want do a sub stack newsletter do a podcast do things on their own how do you see this change do you think people even gravitate towards those traditional or do you think everyone's going to say screw that i want to go off on my own i think journalism is in big trouble and i've felt that for a long time so does my wife uh it's tough to find the kind of journalism that not only we practiced, but we believe in. I interviewed Joy Reid on the podcast. And she, I said, so what would you call your feelings about news? Do you think you're a journalist or do you think you're an opinionist? She gave me a comment that I felt was legit. she says i'm an opinion journalist i said okay a lot of us would think that that's kind of cross-purposes but that's okay if that's where you want to feel that's fine she says i said so what does that mean she says i give an opinion based on fact i said okay as long as your fact is right i've been thinking about this a lot lately like i think about this a lot like i i'm I'm glad you said opinionists. I've never heard that before, but I almost feel like most people sadly now have become opinionists. And it's like, we're forced to, I mean, social media. Now anyone can say their opinion. And I'm like, that's why I try to consume not a huge amount of content online because I get forced to listen to everyone's opinion instead of just making my own. I give credit to one publication. Forget reading their editorial pages, but I will tell you, that the Wall Street Journal, their news pages are as good as theirs. They are very, very good. And they're very, and I don't think that they, I don't think any opinion or any slant is in their news reporting. You can take a look at their editorial page, and that's different. But you take a look at their front page, that's a good front page. You know, my favorite social media platform is LinkedIn. I hope that one day you're on LinkedIn. I haven't seen you there yet. I'm not there. I don't, I'm not there. I feel like you should be though. Really? I think you got to talk to your team. I think you got to get on LinkedIn. I feel like this type of stuff would be great for LinkedIn, by the way. I don't know. I'm not, I'm not a social media expert, but I did write this book with my wife though. It's called Unlimited Possibilities. Oh, very good. How to live life. I believe in that. You know, that's what I'm going to ask you about my final question. So unlimited possibilities is essentially breaking through barriers you didn't think possible. That's how we phrased it. I want to know what was an unlimited possibility moment for you in your life? I think the unlimited possibility came in 1986 when this wild Australian named Rupert Murdoch plucked me from the Channel 5 newsroom in Washington, D.C. and brought me to New York to do this crazy tabloid journalism show called A Current Affair and hooked me up with all these wild, crazy Australian producers and writers. and my whole world just exploded because everything I thought was new in the world of television news couldn't compare to the five years I did on that show. That show, and it catapulted me into 31 years of talk And it was the funnest five years of my life working with these guys. I mean, we were just cowboys, just riding out there, doing everything in the world that no other news division was doing. And within two or three years, when we got so popular, all of a sudden all the television news networks were doing the same stories we were, the same stories they threw in the trash can three years before local tv to national tv to the number one talk show on the planet to rewriting what it even means to be on tv creating reality tv before it even existed i mean what like what a pioneer like what i never thought in 1993 when i'd watch your show i'd be sitting here right now that's the amazing thing about podcast and and i i love your show by the way on part you you interview really amazing you you interview a very diverse group of guests like from all different industries walks of life and they're sitting you're sitting with a cross from maury poach i like to understand what's going through their head i have to ask one of them but that's one of the reasons why it's because in the old days when i was doing local talk shows nobody who knew who i was when they would come to Now, it doesn't matter who comes on. They all watch the show. They know, they think they know me. Wow, I'm so honored to be with you. I said, no, it's, I've never, I've never been able, only now am I on an equal level with all the guests I have. I'm amazed. You know, there's really amazing, humble people. You are incredibly humble. And I appreciate that. Yesterday we had on the founder of Kind Bar, who is now like one of the leads on Shark Tank. And I have to say something I'm recognizing about the two of you is, and all we've had, we've amazing people like yourself. You're always so humble. Like the most successful people, really the pioneers of anything I find are actually incredibly humble and kind people. You know, it's because we're just lucky to have gotten where we are. And we just feel fortunate. And I've never in my life thought that somebody owed me something. Never, ever had that thought in my life. This has been great. I can't wait. I hope everyone checks out the show. I know you got a lot going on. They can check out the social. But on par, it's incredible. Season two. I can't wait. I'm excited for Ricky Lake. I started watching all your highlights. It was great. I'm hooked. And thank you so much, by the way. I'm honored that I am sitting virtually across from you and you're on our show today. So thank you for that. Thanks so much, Daniel. Nice to be with you.
