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Debra Messing and Melanie Lynskey’s family trees just expanded to include some surprising familiar faces.
On the Feb. 25 episode of Finding Your Roots, the two actresses learned that they each have distant famous cousins, who had previously appeared on the show with Henry Louis Gates Jr.
Lynksey learned she is related to Questlove, who Gates informed her is “18% European.”
“He’s your DNA cousin,” he told the Yellowjackets star. “Your father and Questlove, as well as Questlove’s mother, share a long identical segment of DNA on your 15th chromosome.”
“I am very excited,” Lynskey said, before asking Gates, “How surprised were you when this was the outcome?” Gates said he “couldn’t believe it,” and Lynskey called it “so amazing.”
“He’s such a sweet guy,” she said of Questlove. “That’s incredible.”
Messing also learned of a surprising relative of her own to close out the episode: Bernie Sanders.
“What! Are you kidding me? Bernie Sanders?” she said after learning the Vermont senator is her DNA cousin. “No way! Oh my gosh… That is mind-blowing.”
Messing and Lynskey are the latest in a string of stars who have been totally surprised by who they’re related to.
Some other standout distant relatives include Michael Douglas and Scarlett Johansson, Bob Odenkirk and King Charles, Ciara and Derek Jeter and Lena Dunham and Larry David.
Meryl Streep and Eva Longoria also learned of their connection from Gates in his 2010 docuseries Faces of America, which revealed that they are distant cousins.
Now, the actresses often refer to each other as “cousin,” Longoria said, which can cause some confusion. At the table read for season 4 of Only Murders in the Building, for example, when Streep introduced the actress as her cousin, everyone was “so confused.”
“Because I’m the most Latina person in the industry and she’s Meryl Streep,” Longoria told DuJour.
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Finding Your Roots airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on PBS.
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