People Who Are Related To Celebs Are Sharing How Their Fame Has Affected The Fam, And It’s Literally So Interesting
If you’re like me, you know you can’t resist just a little bit of fun gossip. So, when I saw a Reddit post from user joeygreco1985 asking, “People who are related to celebrities, how has their fame affected family gatherings and events?” of course, I had to share. Here are some of the best responses:
Note: BuzzFeed cannot confirm these stories/claims. Please read with your own discression.
1. “I’m related to Keanu Reeves. We have a Reeves ohana gathering every year in Hawai’i and he never comes, which I don’t blame him for at all; his dad was not a good father, so I assume, besides being a busy actor, he doesn’t come because that burned the bridges with our family.”
2. “Megan Fox is my first cousin once removed (her mother and my grandfather are brother and sister). She’s six years older than me, so there are plenty of pictures of us playing together while growing up, but once she got to the point of puberty, she quickly shifted into modeling and moved from Tennessee to Florida to pursue it.”
3. “My aunt is Xena the Warrior Princess [Lucy Lawless], and absolutely nothing at family gatherings. She is just our aunt. We got stopped a couple of times in New Orleans by people who recognized her. Back in New Zealand, when her show was going on, some little girls would come up and want to take pics.”
4. “Not really a celebrity, but my uncle is one of the first dozen people Bill Gates hired to start Microsoft.”
“He’s super-rich now but spends his time being super generous with his money to family and advocating for the protection of national parks and a healthy environment. Bill and Melinda are probably the nicest and most down-to-earth people I’ve ever met. He never buys anything unnecessary if he can help it. He does all he can to make his house 100% environmentally friendly. He’s pretty awesome. You’d never know that he helped change the world.”
5. “My cousins are in the band Cage The Elephant. My cousins are so down to earth that their fame doesn’t really affect our family. We are all so close (even though we live so far away), and they invite us to their concerts when they’re in town.”
6. “My grandfather was Charles Schulz, the creator of Peanuts (Charlie Brown). I don’t really know how it affected my family gatherings because my family hasn’t been together for a long time for other reasons. But I do know that for a few members of the family, the comics are really important to them, and they really pride themselves on their involvement with them.”
7. “My spouse is related to David Tennant. I did not know this until after we were married (my spouse was born in America). It didn’t impact life at all except I got to meet him during my first trip to London.”
8. “My uncle is Peter Weller, AKA Robocop. Every time we go out to dinner he tells these really cool stories about all the other famous people he has met and how he’s friends with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and it’s really cool to listen to his stories for hours on end.”
9. “My ex-wife is related to Richard Ramirez. Yes, the Night Stalker. He came up at EVERY single family gathering, big or small. They would talk about him for hours. Same stories, same reactions.”
10. “My ex was related to Seamus Heaney, an Irish poet who was very famous in Ireland, from what I understand. We stayed at his house a few years ago and I had never heard of him. He was just lovely, like a grandpa you would love to have.”
11. “Some family reunions I’ve been to have been in Preston, Idaho, where Napoleon Dynamite was filmed. They’re not ‘celebrities,’ but I guess we have a couple of family members who were in the movie, and the chicken farm Napoleon works at is owned by a family member as well. Naturally, the movie is a frequent topic of conversation at the reunions.”
12. “My mom’s second cousin is/was a writer for The Simpsons: Tim Long. I got two signed T-shirts.”
—u/rdz1986
13. “Matt McConaughey is my second cousin. He acts normal with us, but the bastard has yet to deliver me a Buick for the bully I beat up for him 38 years ago…though he does always bring the best booze to the parties.”
14. “I had an aunt who had a bit role in a commercial. It was for Life Alert, she was the old lady lying on the ground who said, ‘I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up!'”
“She was a scream and must have done that line a thousand times during our family dinners. Even though everybody in North America has seen that commercial dozens of times, she only got recognized a couple of times.
She was once recognized in a mall, laid down on the floor, and said the line, and people were cheering and clapping.”
15. “My wife is a distant relative of Tom Hanks. It doesn’t affect her at all. If affects me because she reminds me of it every time he is mentioned on the TV.”
16. “My dad is a former (although, not officially retired) professional wrestler. He’s signed to WWE, in the WWE Hall of Fame, and is good friends with someone on a popular TV show that airs on A&E.”
17. “I have a cousin who is a former pop starlet and minor TV personality back in the Old Country. She live-tweeted our grandmother’s funeral.”
18. “My cousin was Miss Universe. She got a lot of attention at family gatherings (which are like every weekend in Puerto Rico) but that was about it.”
—u/deleted
19. “My husband is Jason Rubin, creator of the video game Crash Bandicoot and the company Naughty Dog. I’m very proud of him, he is a very kind person and also the smartest human I’ve ever met. Also very funny. Sometimes people recognize him and that makes me very proud.”
20. “I’m related to Will Smith via marriage. Every time I’ve met him, he was always a wonderful guy who cared about whatever I was talking about at the time.”
21. “I’m cousins with Shay Mitchell (her dad is my dad’s brother) and we used to see each other a lot. Now she comes for Christmas or Thanksgiving, and when people I don’t even talk to see me on her Snapchat story, they message to hang out.”
22. “I have two aunts on Real Housewives. They were always gaudy and trashy before, still gaudy and trashy now. We avoid them as much as possible.”
23. And finally: “So, this is going to sound like a meme answer based on the others but I swear it’s true: My grandmother’s sister’s (now deceased) ex-husband’s second cousin is Glenn Close. It has not affected my life in any way, except that I get to tell people that.”
If you have thoughts or opinions on these you’d like to share, tell me all about them down in the comments! Or, if you have your own celeb story you wanna dish on — especially if they’re a family member of some sort — don’t be shy. This is the place to talk about it!
If you want to share but prefer to remain anonymous, feel free to check out this anonymous Google form. Who knows — your story could end up in a future BuzzFeed article!
Note: some comments have been edited for length and/or clarity.
