Sheryl Lee Ralph may need an invite to the next Jackson family reunion. As it turns out, the actress is a long-lost distant cousin of fellow actor Samuel L. Jackson.
While it was revealed last year that the 76-year-old actor is, in fact, related to the Jackson family, as in Michael and Janet, the famous family bloodline doesn’t end there. On the April 1 episode of PBS’ “Finding Your Roots,” the 68-year-old actress is literally mind-blown to learn about her connection to the “Piano Lesson” star.
“Finding Your Roots,” host and historian Henry Louis Gates, Jr. explained the two actors are distant cousins because they share a “long stretch of DNA on their 16th chromosomes,” meaning “they have a common ancestor somewhere in their family trees.”
When Ralph realized who the historian was talking about, she burst out laughing and said, “Are you kidding me?! I like him so much!”
She added that Jackson has always reminded her of her brother Timothy “for whatever reason, I don’t know why.”
Before the episode wraps, the “Abbott Elementry” star pantomimes her mind being blown in response to the news.
The news is particularly interesting as it arrives just months after Janet Jackson confirmed that the rumors surrounding her famous distant cousins were true. During a BBC radio interview in August, the singer revealed she is distantly related to Jackson, Tracy Chapman, and Stevie Wonder on her mother’s side.
“Not a lot of people know that,” she said.
Elsewhere in Ralph’s episode, she also learns she’s descended from at least two generations of people who were free from slavery before the Civil War, including a man named George Thomas Ralph. The news nearly takes her breath away and causes her to become emotional before she thanks God and “Skip” (Gates Jr.’s nickname) for clarifying her family history.
“It doesn’t surprise me,” she said. “When I look at my family as far back as I can look I always see them owning something. I always see them striving towards something. I always see them working.”
She added that others remarking on her family would always say things in admiration like, “That Ralph family.”
