Former host Maury Povich, whose trash-TV show featured a segment called, “Who’s the Daddy?” is going into his next venture: at-home paternity test kits.
The segment that turned into a national tagline involves men who are denying or trying to establish paternity being given DNA tests and the results being revealed on air. The show partnered with DNA Diagnostics Center (DDC) in 1998 to stage dramatic, often humiliating reveals of paternity before a live studio audience. A mother would come on as a guest, along with a man she believed to be the father of her child. The man would deny it vehemently—and then comes the “big reveal” with the tagline, “the results are in!”–all amid raucous audience cheering and booing.
Now Povich, who retired from his talk show last year, told TMZ on Friday that he is launching a DNA paternity test company called The Results Are In — a nod to the famous phrase.
“I’ve been around paternity testing for more than 20 years, so I know exactly what’s going on and how we can help those people who are looking for fathers, fathers who are looking for children, fathers who don’t think they’re the fathers and fathers who think they’re the fathers,” Povich told TMZ in a video interview. “And we can unite families after a long period of time.”
Povich explained that his business manager approached him with the idea following his retirement, adding that the kits would be through DNA Diagnostics Center — the same company that ran tests with a “99.9%” accuracy rate on “Maury” for over two decades.
The tests, he said, will be sent to the DDC lab and, within two or three days, people can receive confidential results.
The DDC said in a blog post in 2011 that it had done more than 3,000 tests for the show since it began working with “Maury” in 1998. Povich’s talk show ended last September, but continues to air in syndication.
“I’ve seen firsthand how DNA testing can change lives and bring families together,” Povich said in a statement to TMZ. “With ‘The Results Are In,’ we’re making it easier and more affordable than ever before for people to get the answers they need.”
