Heartwarming / The Steve Wilkos Show

• Any episode that features an adult trying to find their birth mother/father when the mother/father in question is ultimately revealed to be their parent, and the parent wants to become involved in their child's life. It also qualifies if the DNA test results reveal that the prospective parent that was brought on is not biologically that of the guest, but the man/woman still wants to act as a parental figure to the person they thought may be their child.
• One of Steve's most heartwarming segments happened in March 2017. Molly and Kendall had a baby together, but “friends” gossiped viciously that the baby was too light-skinned to be Kendall’s. He didn’t doubt his paternity, but Molly wanted to prove it 100%; meanwhile, he was caught in an awkward situation fending off another woman’s advances. On the show, they were so lovey-dovey and sweet, with Kendall complimenting Molly enthusiastically both before and after she came on the stage, that Steve wondered why they even needed his show, and expressed concern that it might all be Too Good to Be True and that one of them might have cheated. The DNA test and the lie detector tests revealed that they had both been faithful to each other and that Kendall was the father. Steve called this the "feel-good story of the year".
• The episode "Racial Violence: They Tried to Hang My 15-Year-Old Son" (February 2018). Jason, a 15-year-old African-American boy, was lynched by racist thugs in his small Indiana town but miraculously survived. Jason and his family were outcasts not only because of his race but because he was being raised by a lesbian couple and had received continuous harassment and death threats since the incident. Local law enforcement seemed ambivalent about the case since the state of Indiana has no hate crime laws and one of the perpetrators received a slap-on-the-wrist 30-day jail sentence. The heartwarming moment came when Steve announced that the show was granting Jason and his moms $5,000 to aid with moving expenses.
• "She Lives with a Molester and I Raise Her Kids" (2015): Jasmine was a young mother of three whose boyfriend, Mario, was accused of molesting her son, and whose father, James - who was raising Jasmine's kids - and sister, Mercedes, had come on the show to expose Mario as a predator. Although Mario could not be given a lie-detector test because of his heavy marijuana use, the results of James's test indicated Mario was guilty. Steve had his doubts that Jasmine would break up with Mario despite the lie-detector results, but the final "After the Show" segment depicted Jasmine blaming herself and sobbing hysterically while being comforted by her father and sister - after having had heated exchanges with them throughout the entire show. They assured her that despite her mistakes and the nasty words she'd hurled at them during the show, they would be there for her and help her get back on her feet and put Mario behind bars.
• "Scared to Death" (2016): A guest named Tim admitted that he had abused his girlfriend Jayshanice to the point where he'd nearly killed her. He claimed to be remorseful but downplayed the severity of the problem, chalking it up to "communication problems." Jayshanice knew she was in danger but couldn't bring herself to end the relationship, leading to this exchange, which left Steve momentarily floored and some audience members in tears:
  Wilkos: What am I gonna do someday when my daughter's your age and she's acting like you?
  Jayshanice: I hope she don't.
  Wilkos: What am I gonna do as a dad?
  Jayshanice: She have a dad, so I'm pretty sure she won't act like this.
  Wilkos: ...I wanna be your dad.
  [puts a comforting arm around a sobbing Jayshanice as the audience cheers]
  • In the end, Jayshanice admitted she wanted help and asked if it would be possible for the show to help her get Tim out of her house. Steve promised to have the show call the police to escort Tim out and help Jayshanice in whatever other ways she needed.
• One story has Steve meet a Latin-American couple. The father, a former drug dealer, wasn't the best person (by his own admission) but when he met his (now) wife, he did a genuine Heel–Face Turn in order to be there for her and their son. When he saw what seemed to be signs of physical abuse on his young son, he suspected his wife (though he clearly didn't want to believe it was her) and brought them on the show. She passed and expressed that she would never let anyone or anything harm their son, he sincerely apologized, and, at Steve's encouragement, they made an effort to make it work. While the story has a happy ending by itself, the extra heartwarming comes in when they give an update that, thanks to Steve's help, they fully reconciled, remained married, and even had a second child together, a baby girl. D'awww.