Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick have been married since 1988, which makes them one of Hollywood’s longest-lasting couples. But when the pair traced their family histories on the PBS show Finding Your Roots, they learned they had more in common than they thought. It turns out the two are distant cousins, or to be exact, ninth cousins once removed.
Sedgwick later said she was not very surprised by the news, but Bacon was a little less amused.
How did they find out?
Finding Your Roots is hosted by Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., and it uses old family records and DNA testing to trace the family history of famous guests.
Near the end of the couple’s episode, Gates showed Sedgwick a picture of her ninth cousin once removed, and it turned out to be her own husband, which led her to call out, “I knew it!”
When Sedgwick talked about the moment at a TV critics’ event in 2017, she said she “figured I was going to be related to Kevin Bacon.” She added, “I mean, most white people are related, ultimately.” She also admitted she had to “act surprised” for the cameras, Evoke reported.
How did each of them react?
The news was extra funny because of the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game, which jokes that almost any actor can be linked to Bacon through their movie roles in six steps or fewer. This time, the link to his own wife took a lot more than six steps.
Bacon took the news with some humor, though he wasn’t thrilled. “I kind of felt like it was a joke at my expense, you know,” he said. Sedgwick admitted the discovery was “a little unsettling,” but she then added, “As long as we’re not first cousins, it’s fine.”
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What does “ninth cousins once removed” mean?
First cousins share a set of grandparents, and second cousins share a set of great-grandparents. Each step adds another generation, so ninth cousins share an ancestor about 10 generations back. “Once removed” means the two people sit one generation apart on the family tree.
That means the ancestor they have in common lived centuries ago. At that distance, the amount of DNA two people share from that line is usually tiny, and it is often too small to detect. In other words, the link is a fun fact about history rather than a close family tie.
This kind of link is also more common than you may think. Go back 10 generations, and each of us has about a thousand ancestors, so most people have many distant cousins they have never heard of. Some of them may even be people they already know.
How did Bacon and Sedgwick meet?
The two first crossed paths when they were younger, and they met again in 1987 while working on the PBS film Lemon Sky. At first, Sedgwick was not especially impressed with her future husband. “He definitely wasn’t my type,” she once said.
Her feelings changed fast, though. The couple got engaged within months and married on September 4, 1988, when Sedgwick was 23 years old.
What is their family like?
The couple have two children together. Their son, Travis Bacon, was born in 1989 and works as a musician and composer. Their daughter, Sosie Bacon, was born in 1992 and is an actress who played Skye Miller on the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why.
Sedgwick is best known for starring in the TV crime drama The Closer, which ran from 2005 to 2012, while Bacon became a star with the 1984 movie Footloose. The two have also worked together on screen, including the 2004 drama The Woodsman. That same year, Sedgwick starred in Cavedweller, directed by Lisa Cholodenko, and Bacon had a role in it too.
How did they get through hard times?
The couple faced a major money blow in 2008, when Bernie Madoff was arrested for running a huge investment fraud. Bacon and Sedgwick were among the thousands of investors who lost money.
Bacon has never said exactly how much they lost, but on the SmartLess podcast, he said they had put “most” of their money with Madoff, The Wrap reported. “There’s obvious life lessons there,” he said, adding, “If something is too good to be true, it’s too good to be true.”
What are they working on now?
In 2026, Bacon and Sedgwick directed a horror-comedy called Family Movie, and they star in it alongside their children. The film had its first showing at the SXSW Film Festival. In the story, a family of filmmakers ends up in a real horror story when a body turns up on the set of their low-budget movie.
Travis Bacon wrote the music for the film, and the family later presented it at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. Bacon told the crowd that they made it with “our son Travis, who acts in the movie and also composed the music.”
What can we learn from their story?
Bacon and Sedgwick have now been married for 38 years, through fame, money trouble and raising two kids in the spotlight.
Their surprise is also a good reminder for anyone curious about their own family tree. If you take a DNA test, you may find relatives you never knew about, and some of them may surprise you. Most distant matches like this one simply show how connected we all are.
Editor’s note: The couple learned they are ninth cousins once removed on the PBS show Finding Your Roots, which uses family records and DNA testing. Sedgwick spoke about the discovery publicly in 2017.
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AI Disclaimer: This article was created with the assistance of AI tools and reviewed by a human editor.