Connie Chung, Maury Povich’s Wife: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know

Maury Povich and journalist Connie Chung have been married since 1984. (Photo by Ethan Miller/Getty Images for MJCI)

Maury Povich is best known as the host of Maury, the long-running syndicated daytime talkshow. He’s currently married to Connie Chung, his second wife.

Povich was previously married to Phyllis Minkoff from 1962 to 1979. He had two daughters with Minkoff, Susan and Amy. In 1995, he and Chung adopted a son, Matthew Jay Povich.

The 70-year-old Chung is a longtime journalist, beginning her career in the early 1970s. She worked for Walter Cronkite at CBS during the Watergate scandal, before moving to Los Angeles to work there. She broke into the national media with a job at NBC in 1983. She’s worked at all three major broadcasting networks, as well as CNN and MSNBC.

Celebrity Net Worth estimates that Chung has a net worth of $15 million. Povich’s estimated net worth is $45 million.

Here’s a look at Chung’s life and her relationship with Povich.

1. Chung & Povich First Met in 1969 When They Both Worked at WTTG in Washington, D.C.

Connie Chung in 2014. (Getty)

Although Povich and Chung married in 1984, they had known each other for well over a decade before then. According to a 1985 People Magazine story on their romance, the two met in 1969, when Chung was a copygirl at WTTG-TV in Washington, D.C. At the time, Povich was a co=anchor and still married to his first wife.

“He was a star,” she told People. “I used to sit there and watch in awe as he was just ripping copy out of the typewriter.”

In 1976, he went to Chicago and she moved to Los Angeles. They met again when Povich moved to Los Angeles and worked at KNXT-TV. Six months later, his marriage crumbled and he was fired because of poor ratings. At the worst point of his life, their romance started to bloom. However, two years later, they were broken apart again when Povich moved to San Francisco and then Philadelphia.

The two later reconnected and married in 1984. Even then though, their first months as a couple were stressful since they were spending so much time apart. He was based in Washington and she was in New York at the time.

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2. Her Rocky Tenure at CBS News Included Getting Newt Gingrich’s Mother to Say He Thinks Hillary Clinton is a ‘Bitch’

After spending much of the 1980s at NBC, Chung joined CBS News in 1989 to host her own newsmagazine on Saturday nights. She also became the second woman ever, after Barbara Walters, to anchor a major network’s nightly news broadcast when she anchored CBS Evening News in June 1993.

Her tenure at CBS ended in 1995, partly thanks to two moments that put her career in jeopardy. In the above video with Kathleen Gingrich, the mother of then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich, Chung asked if she could tell her what her son thinks of Hillary Clinton.

Connie Chung and Walter Cronkite in 1997. (Getty)

Kathleen Gingrich initially refused, but Chung told her to whisper the statement. She then told Chung that her son thinks Clinton is a “bitch.” The incident was widely criticized, since some thought that Chung was telling Kathleen Gingrich that whatever she whispered was off the record. The scene was also parodied in Saturday Night Live.

Then, after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, she sarcastically asked an Oklahoma City Fire department spokesman if they can handle the situation. According to the New York Daily News, Chung later said she regretted the interview, but not before Oklahomans started selling “Bite Me, Connie Chung” shirts.

Dan Rather was also reportedly annoyed that CBS News sent Chung from New York to Oklahoma to cover the bombing instead of him. He was on vacation in Texas at the time and could have been called to cover the bombing.

After this incident and others noted by the New York Times, Chung left CBS for good. She found a job at ABC News on 20/20 in 1997. She later moved over to CNN to host Connie Chung Tonight in 2002. The show ended in March 2003 when the Iraq War began. Even though she was still under contract, the show never came back. She left CNN a short time later.

3. In Early 2006, Chung & Povich Co-Hosted a MSNBC Weekend Show That Came to a Bizarre Conclusion in June 2006

After her CNN tenure ended abruptly, Chung went almost three years without a show. In January 2006, she resurfaced on MSNBC to co-host Weekends with Maury and Connie. The 30-minute show ended in June 2006.

The show’s ending is more famous than anything else associated with the show. During the last episode, Chung sang an off-key rendition of “Thanks for the Memory” while wearing a white gown and sitting on a piano.

As CBS News notes, the first YouTube clip of the performance became an early hit for the site. After a few days on the site, it gained 413,000 views, more than the average audience for Weekends with Maury and Connie.

Chung told the Associated Press that it was meant to be a joke.

“All I want to be sure of is that viewers understood it was a giant self-parody,” Chung told The Associated Press. “If anyone took it seriously, they really need to get a life.”

4. Chung Thinks Hillary Clinton Was ‘The Wrong Woman’ to Become the First Woman President

Maury Povich and Connie Chung in 2009. (Getty)

Although Chung doesn’t have a long-term gig at the moment, she occasionally appears on CNN and MSNBC to provide her opinions. After the 2016 presidential election, she explained to MSNBC why she thought Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump.

“She was the wrong woman,” Chung told Steve Kornacki. “She was the wrong woman eight years ago and she was the wrong woman this time too. People just obviously didn’t trust her. That’s the thing that we all know so clearly.”

She said that there was only one woman who won in the 2016 election: Kellyanne Conway.

“She manipulated her boss so perfectly,” Chung said of Conway. “You could even hear him say it. She would say, ‘stay on the issues’ and he said one time when he was speaking, he said, ‘Donald, stick with the issues, stick with the message.’ It was as if she echoed in his ears. She should be Secretary of State. She could get ISIS to lay down their arms… She’s the best handler that anyone has seen in decades.”

5. Donald Trump Once Said Chung Has ‘Less Talent Than Anybody I Know of’

Chung got into a feud with Donald Trump, long before he ran for president and long before he complained about people on Twitter. This feud played out on talkshows.

In February 1990, Chung aired an interview with Trump on Face to Face With Connie Chung. As Mother Jones notes, Chung told her viewers that the interview might have been done just hours before he told Ivana Trump that their marriage was over. “What did Donald Trump know as he bravely strutted through our interview?” Chung said.

After CBS re-aired the interview a few months later, Trump went on The Joan Rivers Show to complain about the press. He said he now believes that the press is “inherently dishonest.” When Rivers asked Trump for an example, he ripped Chung.

“She sent me roses afterward, and I won’t tell you what I did with the roses,” Trump coyly told Rivers. When she prompted him for the big reveal, he caved. “I cut ’em up and sent ’em back,” Trump said. “I sent her back the stems. Actually, I did.”

However, as Mother Jones notes, Chung later told the Toronto Star that she never received the stems.

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