Sometimes, you're better off not finding your roots. Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the most disturbing revelations made by celebs on this genealogy documentary series.
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00:00 "It's intense, sir. It's intense."
00:02 Welcome to Ms. Mojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the most disturbing
00:07 revelations made by celebs on this genealogy documentary series.
00:12 "This is wild. This is... Do we know what he's wanted for?"
00:16 Number 10. Roseanne Cash
00:18 In 2021, Roseanne Cash, the daughter of country music icon Johnny Cash,
00:23 appeared on 'Finding Your Roots' where she made a particularly interesting discovery.
00:28 "Would you like to meet your DNA code?"
00:30 "Yes."
00:30 "Okay, please turn the page."
00:32 Back in 1965, Cash's mother Vivian was targeted by the KKK in a racist campaign.
00:39 The white supremacist group believed Vivian was Black,
00:42 thus alleging her marriage to Johnny was illegal.
00:45 "She filed for divorce as kind of an ultimatum and wishful thinking and thinking that
00:50 maybe if he sees I'm serious, he'll come back."
00:55 The controversy only died down after the country singer issued a public statement
00:59 insisting his wife was white. However, on 'Finding Your Roots',
01:04 Cash discovered that her mother indeed had African-American heritage.
01:08 "Really?"
01:08 "Yep."
01:09 Vivian's maternal great-great-grandmother was a mixed-race woman named Sarah Shields,
01:13 who was born into slavery in Alabama. Shields later married a white man
01:18 and recorded all her children as white in official documents.
01:22 Number 9. Joe Manganiello.
01:25 Actor Joe Manganiello owes his existence today to the remarkable tenacity of his
01:30 maternal great-grandmother, Terviz Rose Darakjan.
01:34 "Joe's grandmother, Sandra, was born in the Ottoman Empire during World War I.
01:39 Her mother, a woman named Rose Darakjan, was a survivor of the Armenian Genocide."
01:46 Darakjan was an Armenian woman who was married with eight children.
01:50 In 1915, during the Armenian Genocide,
01:53 her husband and seven of her children were murdered before her eyes.
01:58 Darakjan managed to escape and swam across the Euphrates River with her last surviving child
02:04 strapped to her back. But tragically, the infant died during the journey.
02:09 "You ready to see what we found?"
02:10 "Oh, man."
02:12 She was then thrown into an internment camp where she encountered a German soldier named
02:17 Karl Wilhelm Bütinger, who impregnated her. On his paternal side, Manganiello also discovered
02:24 that the man he believed to be his grandfather, Emilio Manganiello, was not biologically related
02:29 to him.
02:30 "Close the door, and whoosh, I open the door and I'm here in Germany at this time looking at my
02:36 ancestor that I never knew."
02:37 Number 8. Tig Notaro.
02:40 Even before Finding Your Roots, comedian Tig Notaro always knew she was the descendant of a
02:45 politician.
02:46 "Comedian Tig Notaro grew up knowing that she had a celebrated ancestor."
02:50 Her great-great-grandfather was John Fitzpatrick, who served as the mayor of New Orleans from
02:55 1892 to 1896. But it was on the show that Notaro first learned about her ancestor's upbringing.
03:03 "Register of boys received into the asylum.
03:05 Name of the boy, John Fitzpatrick. Age when received, 10 years."
03:11 At the age of 7, Fitzpatrick lost his father and was placed in an orphan asylum alongside
03:16 two of his brothers. Surprisingly, this wasn't due to their mother's demise, but rather the
03:22 limited public welfare system, which apparently left her with no choice but to entrust some of
03:26 her children to an orphanage.
03:28 "Can you imagine being in Catherine's position and being forced to do that?"
03:31 "That's something I don't think I could get through."
03:35 Fitzpatrick was later reunited with his mother and worked his way up from a newspaper boy to
03:40 the mayor's office.
03:42 "The only thing that I know about him is just this man in a picture. It's like,
03:47 'Hey, he's the mayor.' I really, I don't know any of this."
03:51 Number 7. Edward Norton
03:53 While Edward Norton is widely recognized for his roles in several popular Hollywood films,
03:59 it turns out he may not be the most famous individual in his family tree.
04:02 "Ogahoness is indeed your 12th grade grandma."
04:05 "Oh my god."
04:07 In the season 9 premiere of 'Finding Your Roots', the actor learned that Pocahontas
04:12 was his 12th great-grandmother, confirming a long-held family lore.
04:16 "Makes you realize what a, what a, what a small, you know, piece of the whole human story you are."
04:23 But perhaps the most uncomfortable detail uncovered during the episode was the revelation
04:28 that Norton's third great-grandfather, John Winstead, was a slave owner in North Carolina.
04:35 While he wouldn't be the first celebrity to make such a discovery,
04:38 Norton reflected on its disturbing nature, describing it as a quote "uncomfortable truth"
04:43 that quote "needs to be acknowledged" and quote "contended with."
04:47 "You know, it is no, it's not a judgment on, on you and your own life, but it's a judgment on
04:53 the, it's a judgment on the history of this country."
04:56 Number 6. Fred Armisen
04:59 For most of his life, 'Saturday Night Live' alum Fred Armisen believed he was one-quarter Japanese.
05:05 Attributing this to his grandfather, the late Masami Kuni, who hailed from Japan.
05:10 He would later discover this was all false.
05:12 "So am I Korean? No."
05:17 Kuni was actually South Korean, originally named Pak Kyung-in,
05:21 and only assumed a Japanese identity after the 1923 massacre of Koreans in Japan.
05:27 "It definitely, it changes the way I think about myself."
05:29 But that was just the tip of the iceberg.
05:32 Armisen also learned that while Kuni lived in Germany in the 1930s and 40s,
05:37 he engaged in propaganda efforts for the Nazis by entertaining German troops.
05:43 Additionally, during this period, Kuni apparently also worked as a spy for Japan,
05:48 gathering intelligence on Southern European and Turkish affairs.
05:51 "He is one of the most clever agents they have."
05:54 Number 5. Lena Dunham
05:56 The 2024 film 'Treasure' stars Lena Dunham as a young woman who visits Poland
06:01 with her aging father and is forced to confront her family's holocaust past.
06:06 When Dunham appeared on 'Finding Your Roots',
06:08 she discovered unexpected parallels between her own ancestry and that of her character in the movie.
06:13 "Can you imagine when you were 14, your parents would put you on a boat?"
06:16 "No, I can't."
06:17 It turns out that Dunham's great-great-grandmother, Regina,
06:20 migrated to America as a teenager, leaving behind nearly a dozen siblings in Europe.
06:26 Tragically, during World War II, one of Regina's nieces, Alana,
06:30 was separated from the rest of her family and sent to the Nazi-occupied city
06:35 of Kamenets-Podilsky in Ukraine.
06:38 Alana is believed to be one of roughly 24,000 Jews who lost their lives there.
06:43 "To see a personal connection to it,
06:45 literalizes it in a way that is, um, that's very, very powerful."
06:51 Number 4. Joe Madison
06:53 Celebrities who appear on 'Finding Your Roots' step into the unknown,
06:57 unsure of what family secrets might be revealed.
07:00 While many learn unsettling details about distant ancestors,
07:03 veteran radio host Joe Madison was confronted with a startling truth about his own father.
07:09 "It was such a shocking discovery that I felt compelled to call Joe at home
07:14 before our interview to let him know in private, away from any TV cameras."
07:19 In the season 5 episode, Madison found out that Felix Madison,
07:23 whom he had always believed to be his biological father, actually wasn't.
07:28 "I appreciated the, uh, your sincerity and concern."
07:34 Sensing the sensitivity of the information, host Henry Louis Gates Jr.
07:39 first called Madison privately to share it with him, away from all the cameras.
07:43 "And then the real question is, then who was?"
07:46 Madison's appearance on the show also led him to the discovery that his biological
07:52 grandfather was one of the subjects of the controversial Tuskegee Institute syphilis study.
07:58 Number 3. Pharrell Williams.
08:00 For many African Americans, having the chance to read firsthand stories of their ancestors' lives,
08:06 especially those who were enslaved, is rare.
08:09 Acclaimed music producer Pharrell Williams got this opportunity
08:13 when he appeared on 'Finding Your Roots' in 2021.
08:15 "I was born on the 18th of December, 1852. I was born on the plantation near Tar River."
08:22 During the show, Williams was presented with an interview given by his great,
08:26 great, great aunt, Jane Arrington, who participated in the Slave Narrative Project in the 1930s.
08:33 In the interview, Arrington shared detailed accounts of her harrowing experience as an
08:37 enslaved person. As he read the notes on the program, Williams was deeply moved by the
08:42 hardships his ancestor was forced to endure. "Those words also forced him to confront the
08:49 cruel reality of what those ancestors actually experienced."
08:55 He also uncovered the unsettling fact that his great, great, great grandfather,
08:59 Fenner Williams, spent the first decade of his life enslaved.
09:03 "It's a lot, man. I have to say I am forever changed."
09:07 Number 2. Michael Douglas.
09:09 Throughout his career, actor Michael Douglas has starred in multiple crime thrillers.
09:14 Yet few of those fictional narratives can match the gripping real-life tales of his own ancestors.
09:19 "Last permanent residence, Chowsy, Russia. Chowsy, Russia. You know who that is?
09:25 That's your father's uncle."
09:27 In a 2024 episode of the show, Douglas learned about his grandfather, Harry Danielewicz,
09:33 and his great uncle, Moshe, both of whom migrated to the U.S. from Chowsy in present-day Belarus.
09:40 Before they left for America, both Harry and Moshe were caught up in a life of crime.
09:45 "Anyone who knows the whereabouts of Danielewicz is obliged to inform the court where he is."
09:51 Harry had been arrested and sent to prison for robbery, while Moshe was implicated in an armed
09:56 robbery case in 1906 and declared a "wanted man" in Chowsy. However, it is unclear if he was ever
10:03 apprehended before he left the country.
10:05 "It's blowing my mind a little. It's really blowing my mind."
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10:23 1. Maya Rudolph
10:27 Like many other celebrities who have appeared on Finding Your Roots,
10:31 Maya Rudolph aimed to uncover her identity.
10:34 "1860 slave census for a man named John Warren Grigsby."
10:39 "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god. I cannot believe I'm looking at this."
10:44 The SNL alum was curious about her maternal African American heritage
10:48 and was given a glimpse into her ancestry. Through the show, Rudolph discovered her
10:53 maternal great-great-great-grandfather, James Grigsby, who was born into slavery
10:58 in Lincoln County, Kentucky.
11:00 "That breaks my heart. Well…"
11:06 A census document from 1860 showed Grigsby listed without a name, but solely by his sex and age.
11:13 5. This discovery was deeply unsettling to Rudolph, causing her to break down in tears.
11:19 "Wow, I just can't believe what I'm looking at."
11:22 She also learned of another maternal ancestor whose owner's grandson denied him the financial
11:28 compensation and freedom promised in his owner's will. Fortunately, he took the grandson to court
11:34 and won.
11:35 "It just makes you feel like you're part of something so much bigger."
11:38 Have you ever made a startling discovery in your family's history? Let us know in the comments.
11:43 "And if I hear it and I see it, I was supposed to feel it."
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11:55 [Music]