Kevin Bacon and his wife, Kyra Sedgwick, discovered they were distantly related after undergoing DNA testing.
The couple, married since 1988 and parents to two children, Sosie and Travis Bacon, learned this surprising fact in 2012. Both Bacon and Sedgwick, well-known actors, participated in the show Finding Your Roots, where their ancestry was analyzed by Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr.
The show, which often reveals connections between celebrities, surprised the couple by uncovering that they were actually related.
Gates revealed to Sedgwick that Bacon was her ninth cousin once removed, to which she humorously responded, “Sh*t, I knew it!” Though Gates asked Sedgwick not to tell Bacon before his own interview, she did anyway. Bacon found the discovery meaningful, saying it highlighted the idea of universal connection: “It’s a beautiful concept that we are all connected.”
While Bacon and Sedgwick took the news in stride, fans were more shocked. Given the popular “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon” theory—suggesting that anyone in Hollywood can be connected to him within six steps—many joked about the coincidence. One person commented, “The less fun version of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon!” while another wrote, “Kevin Bacon essentially playing Six Degrees and finding out his wife is a distant relative wasn’t on my 2024 bingo card!” Fans defended the couple, calling them “one of the best Hollywood couples around.”