Taking advantage of a major opportunity to use his all-time favorite line, Maury Povich announced the paternity results of a baby orangutan.
Povich made the official announcement on behalf of the Denver Zoo. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), the Zoo wrote, “Fresh off receiving the Daytime Emmys Lifetime Achievement Honor, Maury Povich is here to help us announce the paternity results for Siska, our four-month-old Sumatran orangutan! Is Siska’s father thirty-year-old Berani or 16-year-old Jaya?
Watch the video for the big reveal!”
In the video, Povich declared, “Berani, you are the father!” right before it cut to the Denver Zoo’s staff applauding.
PEOPLE reports that Siska’s mother, Eirina, had been matched up with two potential mates, Berani and Jaya. Bernai had lived at the zoo for a long time and was a father before. Jaya made the Denver Zoo his home a few years ago as part of the Species Survival Plan that the zoo worked on with other accredited zoos.
To find out who was Siska’s father, the zoo used DNA from the hair follicles of Siska, Bernai, and Jaya. However, it took a few months to do so because the zoo staff had to establish trust with Eirina to get close enough to the newborn.
The Denver Zoo Official Discusses Having Maury Povich Announce the Paternity Results
Jake Kubié, the zoo’s director of integrated communications, revealed to PEOPLE how happy the Denver Zoo was to have Povich announce the official results. “Apparently I was a bigger Maury Povich fan than I thought, and his voice just popped into my head,” he stated. “I thought maybe he’d be open to doing this for us.”
Kubié stated that with a “little light online stalking,” he found Povich’s executive producer. He then was able to get in touch with the man himself. Povich loved the idea of course.
After the video went on social media, Kubié revealed that zoo followers predicted Povich would be announced after the institution announced plans to reveal Siska’s DNA results.
People were like, ‘I hope you get Maury for this,’” he recalled. “And a few people suggested maybe a Maury impersonator. And I’m sitting there like, ‘You just wait, it’s going to be great.’”
Kubié went on to add that the animals are very much supported in Denver and beyond. “We have a lot of big fans of our orangutan family here. So there’s equal excitement for finding out who the father was and that Maury did this for us.”