Exclusive | I was a Maury baby the dramatic experience changed my family forever

Reanna Madura spent her childhood in the middle of a dark family secret — one harbored by the now 25-year-old’s mother, Melissa Rose, who lived in fear that the truth might scar her daughter for life.Only when she turned 18 did the guilt-ridden parent finally reveal her shame — which had haunted the Midwesterner for nearly two decades.“I was a senior in high school, and on a random day, my mom sat me down and said, ‘You were on the “Maury” show as a paternity test baby,” Reanna, a call center rep living in Chicago, exclusively told The Post.“She thought I was going to be upset, but I was, like, ‘Oh, my God, that’s so cool!’”Melissa, 42, remembers the Gen Zer’s reaction to the news a little differently.“She was, like, ‘No f–king way!’” the married mom of three told The Post, recalling that she sighed with relief herself.

“It was one of the first times I’d ever heard her swear.”Melissa was just 16 when she became pregnant by a former boyfriend in late 1999 — and age 17 when she appeared on the then-hit daytime talk show hosted by Maury Povich, 3-month-old Reanna in her arms, back in October 2000. “I made a phone call to the show because, at the time, you couldn’t just buy an over-the-counter DNA test at your local pharmacy,” said Melissa, who described years of “embarrassment” after opting to air her dirty laundry on nationally syndicated television, all for the sake of her daughter. Her ex-boyfriend — whose name she asked The Post to withhold — had denied fathering Reanna, following a heated argument.“Those tests cost around $2,500 back then, and I was just an uneducated teenager with very little guidance, who wanted the best for my kid,” Melissa recalled.Reanna is among the elite and infamous collection of Y2K-era kids whose parents — some young, some naïve, some impoverished, but all entangled in salacious, sex-spawned strife — sought the help of Povich, a tabloid television legend. The ret...