Dylan Sprouse has claimed he and twin brother Cole are “children of incest” after tracing their family tree through a DNA service.
The former Disney Channel star, 34, made the startling assertion on a recent episode of the Wildmen podcast. He and Cole, who rose to fame together on “The Suite Life of Zack & Cody,” share a birthday and, according to Dylan, a more tangled genetic history than either had realized.
Dylan said he turned to Ancestry, the genealogy platform that uses DNA testing to map family connections. His initial results shifted dramatically as more information surfaced. “When I first took it, my actual breakdown of history was very different than it is now,” he explained on the podcast. The process also connected him with estranged relatives from his father’s fractured side of the family.
“I’ve found a lot of family members, weirdly, who I never met, because my dad’s side of the family is pretty fractured,” Dylan said.
The actor said he uncovered a peculiar pattern: both sides of his family had migrated to California during the Gold Rush. One branch struck gold and relocated from North Carolina, with both families settling in the same region before joining through marriage in the late 1800s. “And then, they diverged, and then they married again [through] my mom and my dad, like, last generation,” Dylan said.
He recalled his reaction upon piecing it together. “I called Cole, I showed him a picture, I was like, ‘Dude, I just found out some f—ing crazy s—.'”
The first warning sign, Dylan said, was the sheer volume of twins in their lineage. “I’d only ever thought that identical twins or twins in general came from my mom’s side of the family. We had seven sets of twins in four generations,” he said, before adding: “‘Because it’s the same family!'”
Dylan said his father’s uncles were identical twins, a detail that deepened his suspicion. He joked that he does not have “webbed toes,” but maintained that the family’s genes crossed at some point. “It’s my dad and my mom. They had no idea. So, then I’m looking at this, and I go, ‘What the hell?'” he said.
He continued: “A lot of stuff started to make sense, because one of my aunts was a twin, 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.”
Dylan married model and actress Barbara Palvin in 2023. The couple welcomed their first child, daughter Sylvie, earlier this year. Palvin returned to the runway six weeks after giving birth, walking in the Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show on Oct. 18. Speaking to the outlet, Dylan described Sylvie as “really cute” and noted her eyesight is improving. “She’s smiling and laughing at my jokes, which is all a dad can really dream of,” he said.