Former Disney Channel star Dylan Sprouse has made a rather unexpected discovery about his family history – and it’s safe to say his famous twin brother Cole was just as shocked.
The 34-year-old actor, best known for starring alongside his identical twin in The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, has claimed the pair are the ‘children of incest’ after investigating their ancestry.
What began as an innocent attempt to trace his family tree apparently ended with Dylan discovering that his parents’ families had been connected for generations, unbeknownst to either of them.
Speaking on the Wildmen podcast, Dylan explained that he had used the genealogy service Ancestry to learn more about his relatives, particularly those on his father’s side.
‘I’ve found a lot of family members, weirdly, who I never met, because my dad’s side of the family is pretty fractured,’ he said.
‘I started to talk to them, compare and contrast.’
It was during this investigation that he uncovered an unusual connection dating back to the California Gold Rush in the 1800s.
According to Dylan, both sides of his family had travelled west during the period, with one group of ancestors striking gold and using their newfound wealth to relocate relatives from North Carolina.
The two families subsequently became connected through marriage in the late 19th century, before their descendants went their separate ways.
However, generations later, those branches of the family tree apparently came together once again when Dylan and Cole’s parents met and married.
And the discovery prompted Dylan to make a rather alarming phone call to his brother.
‘I called Cole, I showed him a picture, I was like, “Dude, I just found out some fing crazy s***,”’ he recalled.
Dylan explained that he had initially become suspicious after discovering identical twins among his father’s relatives, having previously believed the family’s history of twins came exclusively from his mother’s side.
‘We had seven sets of twins in four generations,’ he said, before offering his own explanation for the extraordinary coincidence: ‘Because it’s the same family!’
The actor insisted that neither of his parents had any idea about their ancestral connection.
‘It’s my dad and my mom. They had no idea. So, then I’m looking at this, and I go, “What the hell?”’
He also shared a particularly bizarre family anecdote involving an aunt who, he claimed, had absorbed her twin in the womb, with a cyst later found to contain teeth and hair.
Eventually, Dylan arrived at his rather dramatic conclusion.
‘Long story short, Cole and I are children of incest,’ he declared.
However, while the actor’s account suggests his parents may share distant ancestors, that does not necessarily mean they are closely related, and Dylan did not establish the exact degree of their biological relationship.
Nor is a history of twins in a family evidence of incest, despite the connection Dylan jokingly drew between the two.
The revelation comes during an exciting new chapter in Dylan’s own family life, after he and his wife, Hungarian model Barbara Palvin, welcomed their first child together.
The couple, who tied the knot in 2023, recently became parents to a daughter named Sylvie.
And while Dylan may have uncovered some unexpected surprises in his family’s past, he appears thoroughly delighted by its newest addition.
Speaking to E! News about fatherhood, he revealed that his daughter was already beginning to recognise familiar faces.
‘She’s smiling and laughing at my jokes, which is all a dad can really dream of,’ he said.