Kevin Bacon and his wife Kyra Sedgwick discovered they were related to one another after undergoing a series of DNA tests.
The two Hollywood stars wed in 1988 and went on to welcome two kids together: Smile star Sosie Bacon, 32, and music artist Travis Bacon, 35.
Many people will continue to learn new things about their spouse over the duration of their marriage, and Bacon and Sedgwick were hit with a pretty big bombshell about each other back in 2012.
Kyra Sedgwick and Kevin Bacon have been married for over 30 years (Araya Doheny/FilmMagic)
Both Footloose favorite Bacon and Sedgwick (best known for The Closer and Brooklyn Nine-Nine) separately went on Finding Your Roots to have Harvard University educator Henry Louis Gates Jr. look into their DNA and ancestry.
Dozens of celebrities have starred on the show over the years, who often go on to discover that they’re loosely related to another famous face.
For example, veteran actor John Lithgow learnt that he was related to Gates Jr. himself, while Julia Roberts was told she was a distant cousin of Edward Norton’s.
But it was Bacon and Sedgwick’s DNA results that really got people talking, as it was revealed that the married pair are actually related to each other.
Kyra Sedgwick was first given the news on Finding Your Roots (PBS)
Revealing a photograph of Bacon to Sedgwick, Gates Jr. announced: “That is your ninth cousin once removed.”
“Sh*t,” she replied. “I knew it! I knew it. I knew it. I knew it.”
Two weeks later Gates Jr. interview Bacon as well and asked that Sedgwick didn’t tell him about their connection – but she ended up spilling the beans anyway.
Bacon described it as ‘beautiful’, saying: “It’s a beautiful concept that we are connected. That we all, essentially, kind of climbed out of the same swamp. It’s fun to be at the forefront of that idea.”
Kevin and Kyra and ninth cousins once removed (Robert Smith/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images)
While Bacon and Sedgwick seemed somewhat unsurprised by their connection to each other, film fans were much more so.
Noting ‘Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon’ (the idea that anyone involved in the Hollywood film industry can be linked through their film roles to Bacon within six steps), one person penned on social media after learning the news: “The less fun version of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon!”
A second said: “One of the best Hollywood couples around and someone’s gotta try and bring them down. Not today internet!!”
“They may be ninth cousins once removed but Kevin Bacon essentially playing Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon and finding out his wife is a distant relative was not on my bingo card for 2024,” someone else wrote on Twitter.
