Pop Culture

Dylan Sprouse Says He and Twin Cole Are ‘Children of Incest,’ Reveal Shocking Ancestry Results

The actor revealed his parents’ families had already married over a century ago.

HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA - FEBRUARY 05: (L-R) Cole Sprouse and Dylan Sprouse attend the Los Angeles Special Screening of Focus Features' "Lisa Frankenstein" at Hollywood Athletic Club on February 05, 2024 in Hollywood, California.
Steven Simione/WireImage

Key Takeaways

  • Dylan Sprouse said on the October 20 episode of his "Wildmen" podcast that an Ancestry search revealed his mother's and father's families had already intermarried in California in the late 1800s before diverging and marrying again with his parents.
  • Dylan Sprouse explained that this double family connection is why his family has seven sets of twins across four generations, since he and twin brother Cole are related through both sides.
  • When Dylan Sprouse called Cole to show him the discovery, Cole responded "Not looking at that" and hung up on him.
  • Dylan Sprouse, who married Barbara Palvin in 2023 and welcomed daughter Sylvie on September 7, also described an aunt who had absorbed her twin in the womb, with teeth and hair found in a cyst on her shoulder.

Dylan Sprouse revealed some of the shocking, potentially incestuous, history of his family through a genealogy test.

The actor, who’s the twin brother of Cole Sprouse, claimed on the Tuesday (Oct. 20) episode of podcast Wildmen that the siblings are “children of incest,” noting his discovery through DNA testing service Ancestry.

Around the two-minute mark of the video below, Sprouse began by explaining that his family origins started during the Gold Rush, when one set of relatives struck gold and moved the family from North Carolina to California. Both sides of his family settled in the state in the 1800s.

"Get this: the families marry in California in the late 1800s. And then they diverged. And then they married again... with my mom and my dad, like last generation," Dylan said.

Co-host Brendan Columbus asked whether Sprouse’s parents have the same grandparents, which the entertainer seemingly confirmed. "It's my dad and my mom. They had no idea," he said. "So, then I'm looking at this, and I go, 'What the hell?' A lot of stuff started to make sense."

Sprouse joked that when he tried to share a picture of the family with his brother, he refused and hung up on their phone call.

Sprouse added his previous assumption that identical twins ran on his mother's side, until conversations with his father's relatives confirmed that it was the same for their side of the family. "We have seven sets of twins in four generations, which is crazy. That's a lot of twins," Sprouse said. "The reason why we have a lot of twins is it's the same family!"

Sprouse also detailed a gnarly story about his grand-aunt aunt who “ate” her twin in utero. When doctors opened a cyst in her shoulder, Sprouse claimed it contained teeth and hair, possibly belonging to the unborn sibling.

In July 2023, Sprouse married actress and model Barbara Palvin, who welcomed their daughter, Sylvie, who’s not a twin, last month.

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