- Talk show host Maury Povich, 81, and journalist Connie Chung, 74, have been married for 36 years.
- They share a 25-year-old son named Matthew Jay Povich.
- Here's how Povich and Chung met and fell in love.
He's an iconic daytime talk show host. She's a trailblazing journalist with a storied career. Though many of us grew up seeing them both on television, you might've forgotten that Maury Povich and Connie Chung come home to each other every night. Povich and Chung have been a married couple since the 1980s, and according to an October 2020 interview with People, they're as happy as they were when they began dating 42 years ago.
Like any longtime married couple, they've had their ups and downs (they even took a stab at hosting a short-lived TV show together; more on that later). Through it all, they credit a shared sense of humor and one partner's ease of forgiveness with helping them stay Maury'd—sorry, married.
"Whatever discussions or arguments go on during the day, once the head hits the pillow, it’s over and not to be continued the next morning. It is not on my mind," Povich told People.
Chung added, "That is truly admirable, but I hold grudges and I need to continue to argue it out, whatever it is." After 36 years of marriage, they clearly know their dynamic well.
Here's the story of how Maury Povich and Connie Chung met, and what we know about their life and kids together.
They met at a Washington, D.C. TV station in 1969.
The couple's initial interactions were far from romantic. At the time, Chung, who'd later become the first woman ever to co-anchor CBS News in 1993, was just starting out at WTTG-TV.
"In 1969, I was a copygirl at a little TV station in Washington, D.C. and he was a big star and I was just a kid," she told People. "I would rip the wire copy off the machine and give it to Mr. Povich. He was very gruff and very matter-of-fact. He never looked up. I kept thinking, 'Maybe someday he'll acknowledge that I’m a human being.'"
Unable to resist gently ribbing her husband, she added, "I worked there for two years and then I left to launch my career—and I left him in the dust." It would be years before work led their paths to cross again.
They didn't start dating until 1977.
When they re-met about five years later in Los Angeles, the tables had turned. "Several years later, after bouncing around the country from job to job, I ended up in Los Angeles by 1977 and at that time, I was the second banana to Connie," Povich told People. "Connie was the big anchor star at the CBS affiliate and I was her co-act before they cleaned house."
Povich said that Chung was really the only person he knew in L.A., and joked that the fact that he'd been let go ultimately melted her heart. "I always said the way to get to Connie’s heart is first, she pities you, and then she can love you," he continued. "She pitied the fact that I was fired."
Their romance was a slow burn though, as they dated "non-exclusively" for the next seven years.
They've been married since 1984.
Their wedding was a small ceremony with 65 guests, according to People, officiated by a rabbi.
"Most of the time I don’t like him very much, you know,” Chung joked to Closer Weekly in 2019. “But I still love him. But lots of times I don’t like him.”
In 1995, they adopted a son.
Chung and Povich adopted their son, Matthew Jay Povich, in 1995 after they found they were unable to conceive. Matthew, now 25, is an associate professor of physics and astronomy at California State Polytechnic University in Pomona.
Povich also has two daughters from his previous marriage, Susan, 57, and Amy, 53. He and Chung are grandparents of four.
Their dog is the Maury warm-up act.
When Chung and Povich paid a visit to Megyn Kelly TODAY in 2018, they brought their dog, a golden retriever named Birdie. The couple's love for dogs dates back to their wedding day.
"We both said to each other afterward, 'Were you listening to what the rabbi was saying?' And we both said, 'No, but did you see that dog right across the street?'" Chung recounted to People. "We both were mesmerized by this dog in the building across the street who was looking down at the traffic and going from window to window barking."
Their joint ventures include a short-lived cable show.
Though Chung is largely retired, she and Povich own a newspaper called The Flathead Beacon in Montana, where they have a home. In 2006, they also co-hosted an MSNBC show, Weekends with Maury and Connie. When it was canceled after six months, the show made headlines for Chung's goodbye musical number, in which she sang an off-key parody version of "Thanks for the Memories" while sitting atop a piano dressed in an evening gown.
Over and over again, Povich and Chung's sense of humor has kept them aloft. "Both Maury and I don’t take ourselves seriously,” Chung told Closer Weekly. “People in our business in television news are ridiculous. They become bigger than life in their own minds.”
Maury told People that it's also about a mutual respect for each other's careers, space, and values. "There’s no need for any do-overs. Maybe that’s the reason why we’re still married."
"I would go back and relive every moment," Chung added.
For more stories like this, sign up for our newsletter.
Samantha Vincenty is the former senior staff writer at Oprah Daily.
