Celebrities You Never Knew Were Cousins

The New Jersey politician and famed TV personality found out they are distant cousins on different episodes of the PBS series, Finding Your Roots. They brought the news to a bigger audience in April 2021 when Booker made an appearance on RuPaul's Drag Race. "Thank god for you, thank god for America and thank god for my cousin RuPaul," Booker said during his cameo.

You couldn't ask for a better cousin than Jenny McCarthy. Back in the '90s, The View host helped older cousin Melissa land her first TV role as a guest star in the former's short-lived sitcom.

Now that both McCarthy girls have cemented their places in Hollywood, she's spoken out against criticism of Melissa on multiple occasions.

Once you know that Tom Cruise's real name is "Thomas Mapother," suddenly the resemblance between the A-lister and his character-actor cousin becomes a lot more apparent. (Look at their chins!)

Mapother has acted in five films with Cruise — Born on the Fourth of July, Magnolia, Mission: Impossible II, Vanilla Sky and Minority Report — but to us, he'll always be Ethan, the duplicitous member of the Others from Lost.

This is one of those facts that you feel a lot more people should know than they do. We're talking two of the most famous musicians to come out of the '90s!

Although perhaps that would have made it weird for them to collaborate on a love song, as they did on Snoop's "Special."

If someone asks you to explain the concept of first cousins once removed, just tell them, "It's like Edie Sedgwick and Kyra Sedgwick!" (Edie's father was the younger brother of Kyra's grandfather.)

Likewise, next time someone asks you how to explain the concept of second cousins once removed to them, just tell them, "It's like Brooke Shields and Glenn Close!" (Shields's great-grandmother was the sister of Close's grandfather.)

The difference? You have probably met most of your first cousins once removed, at least once or twice (unless your parents hated their cousins). You probably haven't met many of your second cousins once removed.

We'd always sort of assumed "Damon Dash" was not the name the former Roc-A-Fella Records honcho was born with. But it was!

When you realize that your whole perspective was whack, it makes more sense that he's cousins with Clueless's Stacey Dash.

Composer Carmine Coppola unwittingly spawned a Hollywood dynasty: His son Francis became the famed director of The Godfather and Apocalypse Now, while his daughter Talia Shire starred as Adrian in the Rocky movies.

Decades later, the second generation of Coppola cousins has gotten mixed up in the family business: Frances's daughter Sofia and Talia's son Jason have each followed in their parents' footsteps, while their cousin Nicolas (son of the comparatively unknown August Coppola) took a new name from one of his favorite superheroes and became the Internet's One True God.

Other Coppola cousins in the entertainment industry include Sofia's older brother Roman, who co-wrote The Darjeeling Limited and Moonrise Kingdom, and Jason's younger brother Robert, lead singer of the band Rooney.

All their lives, brothers Cedric "K-Ci" and Joel "JoJo" Hailey have been cousins with American Idol winner Fantasia Barrino.

The trio haven't officially recorded together, but K-Ci did show up at a Fantasia concert to duet on "Nobody Greater" with his younger cuz.

Cousins often enjoy different levels of success at different points in their lives, but the comparison is striking in the case of these two relatives.

Melissa Gorga was just a child when her cousin Ralph Macchio shot to fame in The Karate Kid — years later, he was working as a guest actor on shows like Psych and How I Met Your Mother when an all-grown-up Gorga became a cast member on The Real Housewives of New Jersey.

Though they're only second cousins, LeVox and DeMarcus probably hang out more than most of the relatives on this list. They have to — they're two of the three members of the country group Rascal Flatts!

Even before she came to fame on The L Word, actress Katherine Moennig was haunted by questions about her blonder, goopier cousin.

As a 2000 New York Observer profile observed, when asked about Gwyneth, "a wary look crossed Ms. Moennig's eyes and her facial muscles seemed to freeze up."

Later, she revealed a certain gratefulness for their lack of resemblance: "We're totally different people. We look very different, too No one's judging me solely on the fact that I am her cousin."