Dylan Sprouse explains how DNA technology helped him discover he and Cole are ‘children of incest’
Disney Channel stars Cole and Dylan Sprouse have made a startling discovery about their lineage, with the latter claiming the pair of identical twins are 'children of incest'.
Although Cole famously played Ben Geller in Friends, the pair were often known for sharing roles or appearing together in the likes of Big Daddy. The Sprouse twins most famously played Zack and Cody Martin on the Disney Channel's The Suite Life of Zack & Cody, as well as The Suite Life on Deck spin-off series.
Both have seen their careers continue from being child actors, with Dylan also being part of the weekly Wildmen podcast with writer/director Brendan Columbus.
On the latest episode, Dylan Sprouse told Columbus how the twins discovered there was incest further back on their family tree, with the revelation apparently coming from Ancestry.com.
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Explaining how DNA testing was used to trace their lineage, Dylan Sprouse said: "When I first took it, my actual breakdown of history was very different than it is now.
‘I’ve found a lot of family members, weirdly, who I never met, because my dad’s side of the family is pretty fractured. I started to talk to them, compare and contrast."
Saying he “found out something weird," Dylan noted how both sides of the family moved to California during the Gold Rush.
With both sides living in the area, they were joined by marriage in the late 1800s: "And then, they diverged, and then they married again [through] my mom and my dad, like, last generation."
Columbus asked: "Does that mean your parents have the same grandparents?"
It's important to note that Sprouse didn't reply, so it's unclear how far back the marriage goes.
Still, Sprouse continued digging and found out that his father's uncles were also identical twins. Although he only thought identical twins or twins were on his mom's side of the family, he said it seemed odd that there were seven sets of twins in four generations.
Ultimately, Sprouse realized it was "because it’s the same family."
When a lot of stuff started to make sense, Dylan took his sprawling family tree to Cole: “I called Cole, I showed him a picture, I was like, ‘Dude, I just found out some f-ing crazy s-’."
While Dylan joked that he doesn't have 'webbed toes', he still believed the family genes crossed paths at some point back when: "It’s my dad and my mom. They had no idea. So, then I’m looking at this, and I go, ‘What the hell?’”
It all started to make sense to Sprouse as he said one of his aunts was a 'twin', adding: "But she was one of the twins who ate her twin in the womb, and when they cut open a cyst in her shoulder, it had teeth and hair. Long story short, Cole and I are children of incest.”
The brothers seem to be taking things in their stride, and in the aftermath, Dylan took to Instagram to share a screenshot of a Just Jared story saying they're children of incest. Whereas Cole called it 'clickbait', Dylan concluded: "NGL they cooked with this headline."
He even joked that he was going to print it off and hang it over the 'communal' family bed. Well, at least he can find the funny side of the Ancestry.com debacle.