Top 10 Celebrity Secrets Revealed on Finding Your Roots

In many parts of the world today, queer people are able to live and love freely, but sadly, history hasn't always been so kind. Actress Justina Machado got a poignant reminder of this when she appeared on the sixth season of “Finding Your Roots.” The show uncovered a surprising chapter from her grandfather’s life. As a young man, he was sent to the Río Piedras State Penitentiary in Puerto Rico, one of the most notorious prisons in the Caribbean, for having a sexual relationship with another man. This news came as a genuine shock to Machado, who was deeply saddened by the heavy injustices her grandfather had to endure.

Finding out that the man you’ve called “Dad” your entire life isn’t actually your father can be earth-shattering. That’s exactly what happened to veteran radio host Joe Madison. In this season five episode, Madison learned that Felix Madison, the man who raised him and whose name he bore, wasn’t his biological father. That title belonged to a man named Herman Haygood, a revelation that came with a surprising bonus. Madison later discovered that through Haygood, he had two step-brothers, one of whom even went to school with him. Knowing how deeply personal this news would be, host Henry Louis Gates Jr. made sure to break it to Madison privately, giving him the space to absorb the shock on his own terms.

Anyone who’s watched “Curb Your Enthusiasm” knows that Larry David, or at least his fictional alter ego, is endlessly curious. On the show, that curiosity often lands him in hilariously awkward situations. In real life, however, it led him to an appearance on “Finding Your Roots,” where he sought answers about his notoriously secretive mother. And boy, did he get them! Turns out David’s mother, who had gone by the name Rose all his life, was actually born Regina. Not only that, but she wasn’t born in the U.S. like he’d always assumed, but actually in Poland. Just goes to show how little one can know about their own immediate family.

This political activist and author couldn’t be more different from some of her ancestors. Angela Davis has dedicated much of her life to advocating for civil rights and battling structural racism. But on “Finding Your Roots,” she learned that some of her forebears were complicit in the very injustices she fights against. The season nine episode revealed that Davis is a direct descendant of William Brewster, one of the 101 settlers who sailed to the colonies aboard the Mayflower. To say she was stunned would be an understatement. Wrestling with this revelation wasn’t easy, but Davis’ life’s work is a powerful testament to how far we can diverge from the paths of those who came before us.

Oscar-winning actress Viola Davis probably had no idea about the mystery surrounding her grandfather, Henry Logan, until she appeared on “Finding Your Roots.” Davis learned that Logan’s paternity was a bit muddled. Official documents listed two different men as his father: Gable Logan on his social security application and John Young on his obituary. One might assume Gable was the father since he was married to Logan’s mother, Corine, but the truth is hardly ever that simple. Historical records showed that after returning from WWI, Gable didn’t move back in with his wife. Hence, it is likely that Corine had an affair with her neighbor, John Young, resulting in her son’s birth. We only wonder if Logan knew this before he died.

LL Cool J owes much of who he is today to his maternal grandparents, Eugene Griffith and Ellen Hightower. Not only did they raise him after his parents separated, they also sparked his love for music early on. Griffith, who was a jazz musician, gifted the rapper a guitar when he was just eight. However, on “Finding Your Roots,” LL Cool J came to learn that Griffith and Hightower weren’t his biological grandparents. They had adopted his mother, Ondrea, as a baby in 1947, a secret they took with them to the grave. While this bombshell left both the rapper and his mother stunned, it didn’t diminish his affection for them. In fact, it made him love and respect them even more.

Many of us love a good spy thriller, but imagine finding out there’s a spy in your own family. That fantasy became a reality for “Saturday Night Live” alum Fred Armisen in this season four episode. For years, Armisen thought his grandfather, Masami Kuni, was an ordinary Japanese dancer who lived in Germany before settling in the U.S. But it turns out Kuni wasn’t even Japanese. He was actually South Korean, born Park Yeong-in, and adopted a Japanese identity after the 1923 massacre of Koreans in Japan. And if that wasn’t dramatic enough, while in Germany, Kuni not only engaged in Nazi propaganda efforts, but also doubled as a spy for Japan, gathering intelligence from the Germans.

“The View” co-host Sunny Hostin got the shock of her life when she appeared on “Finding Your Roots” in 2024. Hostin always believed she was half Puerto Rican through her mother, and identified as Afro-Latina. However, when she took a DNA test on the show, it revealed that she was only seven percent Puerto Rican, with a significant chunk of Spanish ancestry. Even more surprising, she learned that her maternal fourth great-grandfather was a Spanish merchant involved in the slave trade, and his son, Fermín, owned at least one enslaved person. While the revelation reshaped how Hostin saw her heritage, it also gave her an unexpected connection to her husband, who happens to share Spanish roots.

Actress Kerry Washington never officially appeared on “Finding Your Roots,” but the show indirectly led her to uncover a shocking family secret. Back in 2018, Washington decided to explore her ancestry on the series and asked her parents for DNA samples. Their hesitation was a dead giveaway that something was amiss. As it turns out, Washington was conceived via a sperm donor, a fact that her parents hadn’t yet disclosed and feared would come to light through the tests. After consulting with host Henry Louis Gates Jr., they finally opened up to her. Washington revealed this while promoting her memoir “Thicker Than Water,” sharing how it ultimately erased the “weird disconnect” she’d felt with her father and deepened her bond with both parents.

Anyone appearing on “Finding Your Roots” should be prepared for potentially embarrassing revelations about their ancestry. Ben Affleck’s experience on the show’s second season should serve as a cautionary tale on how not to handle such situations. During the episode, the actor discovered that one of his maternal ancestors, Benjamin Cole, was a slave owner in Georgia. Affleck was embarrassed by this detail and after filming, he pressured the show’s producers to edit out that segment from the final cut. But much like the skeleton in his family’s closet, his cover-up didn’t stay buried. When Sony Pictures was hacked in 2014, one of the leaked emails exposed Affleck’s request. The ensuing controversy led to the show’s third season being temporarily suspended.




What shocking secrets do you think may be hiding in your own ancestry? Spill them in the comments below.