Genealogical records verify that Marilyn Monroe and Britney Spears are indeed related, officially making them ninth cousins, three times removed.
This surprising ancestral connection was uncovered by the celebrity genealogy website Famous Kin, which successfully traced both of their family trees back to the same 17th-century couple, Richard Scott and Catherine Marbury.
Scott was a prominent Quaker leader and early settler of Rhode Island, while Marbury was a famous religious activist exiled from colonial Massachusetts.
Because the lineage dates all the way back to their shared ancestor Elizabeth “Betty” Hall (born in England in 1607), the relationship is incredibly distant.
Statistically, a ninth cousin share less than 0.06% of your DNA, meaning it acts more like fun historical trivia than a close genetic tie.
Still, pop culture fans frequently celebrate the fact on Reddit and Instagram, pointing out the eerie parallels between the two blonde bombshells who both redefined their eras, commanded the camera, and faced intense, hyper-magnified scrutiny from the global media.