1.
Elton John is Eminem’s AA sponsor, which I still can’t believe but is kind of…wholesome?
2.
Dolly Parton met Keanu Reeves when he was a little kid because his mom made many of her costumes, including her Playboy Bunny costume. In fact, Keanu went as Dolly in the Playboy Bunny costume for Halloween one year. (I need photos of this.)
3.
Speaking of Keanu — Alice Cooper babysat him when he was a kid. Cooper didn’t even realize the kid he’d babysat was Keanu until Reeves revealed Cooper had babysat him on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. Apparently, fake poop in the fridge was somehow involved?
4.
Cameron Diaz went to high school with Snoop Dogg, and she’s “pretty sure” she bought weed from him, which checks out.
5.
Meghan Markle did the calligraphy for Robin Thicke’s 2005 wedding invitations — not because the two were friends, but because the then-23-year-old was doing calligraphy to make ends meet before making it in Hollywood.
6.
Alicia Keys and Timothée Chalamet grew up in the same building. Larry David also lived there at one point, along with Terrence Howard, Tennessee Williams, Angela Lansbury, Mickey Rourke, and Patrick Dempsey…so I’m convinced there’s some special star-making power in the water at this building.
7.
And guess who was the first security guard of that building? Samuel L. Jackson.
8.
Mick Foley and Kevin James went to high school together, and were even on the same wrestling team, where they competed against each other “day in and day out,” according to Foley. He even got in on the Kevin James memes to joke about the old days.
9.
Tommy Lee Jones and Al Gore lived together at Harvard, which I honestly cannot imagine.
10.
One of my fave celeb connections? Lauryn Hill went to Zach Braff’s bar mitzvah, and they were even partners during the game “Coke and Pepsi.”
11.
I’m kind of in shock that Christian Bale’s stepmother is feminist rights icon Gloria Steinem.
12.
And Matthew Perry’s stepdad was Keith Morrison of Dateline fame.
13.
Speaking of Perry — he went to school with Justin Trudeau as a kid and even claimed he beat him up in the fifth grade because “I think he was excelling at a sport that we weren’t as good at. It was pure jealousy.”
14.
Jamie Dornan and Eddie Redmayne were roommates before they were famous. At the time, they also hung out with Robert Pattinson, Andrew Garfield, and Charlie Cox. I’m still searching the mail for my invite, TBH.
16.
And Chloe Sevigny babysat Topher Grace — Topher even had a crush on her.
17.
Mara Wilson and Ben Shapiro are cousins, and I can’t IMAGINE how awkward those holiday meals are.
18.
Joe Rogan and Gerard Way, the lead singer of My Chemical Romance, are also cousins. Sorry, but I’d make Rogan sit at the kid’s table — or in the garage by himself — at Thanksgiving.
19.
Nas is Yara Shahidi’s cousin, which is one Christmas dinner I’d like to attend.
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20.
Scarlett Johansson and Jack Antanoff dated in high school and even went to prom together, which is so bizarre to me. They broke up after graduation, reportedly due to Johansson’s rising fame, and Antanoff wrote the song “Better Love” about her.
21.
Ed Sheeran slept on Jamie Fox’s couch for six weeks when he first moved to LA. He bought a one-way ticket there for a single gig, trying to keep the momentum going, and ended up on Jamie Foxx’s radio show The Foxxhole, which led to performing at Foxx’s live music night, and then eventually sleeping on his couch and using his in-home recording studio for free.
22.
Denzel Washington paid for Chadwick Boseman and a group of his classmates at Howard University to attend a summer theater program at The University of Oxford. When they ran into each other years later, after Boseman had made it big, Denzel joked to Chadwick that he owed him money.
23.
Children’s poet and author Shel Silverstein worked for Playboy Magazine and often hung out at Hugh Hefner’s mansion. If The Giving Tree was written at the Playboy Mansion, I’m sorry, I’m never going to look at it the same way again,
24.
Dominic Cooper and James Corden used to be roommates. Cooper introduced Corden to his wife, Julia Carey. That’s cute and all, but I honestly cannot picture Cooper and Corden hanging out.
25.
After meeting in a playwriting class, Owen Wilson and Wes Anderson became college roommates, and they were both kind of delinquents! Apparently, they had issues with their landlord, who wouldn’t fix their broken windows, so they staged a fake break-in. They also ended up moving out in the middle of the night, causing a private investigator to track them down. Oh, and Anderson once wrote a paper Wilson passed off as his.
26.
Before skyrocketing to fame, Harrison Ford worked on a camera crew for The Doors, helping film a road tour movie. Apparently, they partied too hard even for him, leading Ford to say he wanted to join a monastery afterward.
27.
Larry David and Bernie Sanders are distant cousins, which is hilarious considering how many times David has parodied him.
28.
Pedro Pascal and Sarah Paulson have been friends since the early ’90s before they found fame. One of the first times they hung out, they saw Woody Harrelson at a park and bonded over being fans of Harrelson. When Paulson began to book work, she would give Pascal money so he could afford to eat. And this is why they’re the internet’s Mom and Dad!
29.
Werner Herzog once rescued Joaquin Phoenix from his upside-down car after he got in a crash. Herzog happened to be passing by and saw the wreckage. Phoenix says he heard a “gentle tap” and a “calming and beautiful” German voice telling him to relax, which made him feel safe. Herzog helped him from the car and then disappeared moments later. “I got out of the car and I said thank you, and he was gone,” Phoenix recounted.
30.
Martin Luther King Jr. paid the hospital bill when Julia Roberts was born. Why? Roberts’ parents ran a theater school that let in the Kings’ children at a time when few programs would admit Black children. When her parents couldn’t pay the hospital bill, Martin and Coretta stepped in.
31.
Speaking of Coretta Scott King, she babysat John Lithgow when he was a kid, which is beyond random.
32.
And speaking of MLK Jr., his father, Martin Luther King Sr., was once held hostage by Samuel L. Jackson. Jackson was part of a group protest against the administration and curriculum, which involved locking the school’s board (which included Dr. King) in a room using chains from the walkways for a day and a half. At one point, Dr. King had chest pains, so they “put him on a ladder, put him out the window, and sent him down.” Jackson ended up being kicked out of school for the protest.
33.
This is especially surprising considering Jackson had been an usher at Martin Luther King Jr’s funeral the year prior.
34.
One last Martin Luther King Jr. celebrity connection — King once met Star Trek star Nichelle Nichols at an NAACP event and convinced her not to quit the show. “He told me that he was my biggest fan,” she recalled. “And he asked me to please stay on the show — that I was a role model to Black children and women all across America … He told me that I couldn’t leave: that I was part of history.” Nichols, who was the first Black woman to have a continuing co-starring role on American TV, would end up being one-half of the first kiss between a Black person and a white person on an American TV show.
35.
Timothée Chalamet and Ansel Elgort went to high school together and competed for the same parts in plays. They also had the same drama and science teachers and played on the same basketball team. (TBH, I cannot picture either of these men playing basketball.)
36.
Kerry Washington is from the same neighborhood in the Bronx as Jennifer Lopez and attended the same high school as Gwyneth Paltrow.
37.
Jay Z, Busta Rhymes, and Notorious BIG all went to high school together, and Jay and Rhymes once had a rap battle at lunch (oh, to be a fly on that wall). Rhymes said he would skip class with Biggie and smoke weed. Oh, and DMX also went to school there.
38.
Seth Rogan and Nathan Fielder went to the same high school and were even in an improv group together.
39.
And finally, Rachel Brosnahan’s aunt was fashion designer Kate Spade.
What are other wild celeb connections you know? Let us know in the comments!