[Warning: The below contains MAJOR spoilers for Finding Your Roots, Season 10, “In the Blood.”]
There are always gems to uncover when it comes to PBS‘s Finding Your Roots, and in the latest episode “In the Blood,” Girls star and creator Lena Dunham discovered a rather funny family connection.
In the installment’s final moments, host Henry Louis Gates Jr. presents guests with any famous connections they may have with past featured celebrities. When it was time to unveil Dunhams, she turned the page to find none other than Curb Your Enthusiasm‘s Larry David.
“No! My husband’s gonna freak out,” Dunham exclaimed. “It’s Larry David! The other LD… This is the hottest information I could have gotten,” Dunham continued to rejoice.
“Larry shares multiple long identical segments of DNA with you and your mother. This means that you share at least one common ancestor, somewhere on your mother’s side of your family tree,” Gates Jr. told Dunham.
“I could not have turned the page and been more delighted. This is incredible. You saved the best for last,” she beamed.
This was certainly the brighter side of the episode’s revelations, which also included actor Michael Douglas.
It turns out that Douglas has a connection to the founding father, George Washington, as he was presented with a document revealing correspondence between the first president and Douglas’ ancestor, a merchant-turned-patriot. John Neilson lived in New Jersey and was also the third person to read the Declaration of Independence publicly. He is Douglas’ fourth great-grandfather on the maternal side of his family tree.
The timing is quite ironic as Douglas is set to portray founding father Benjamin Franklin in Apple TV+‘s Franklin, which debuts April 12th.
To say Douglas was surprised would be an understatement. “Very, very impressive,” Douglas remarked.
Finding Your Roots, Tuesdays, 8/7c, PBS (Check your local listings)
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