“We met face-to-face and it’s like looking at yourself in the mirror.”
Finding long lost siblings isn’t something that just happens in the movies! Thanks to the prevalence of DNA testing and expansive online ancestry databases, people have been making some wild discoveries about their families. That, of course, includes celebrities, who have often shared the exciting news when they discover a sibling they didn’t know about. Although it can be a shock, these long lost siblings have led to some happy reunions!
Read on to discover which celebs found long lost siblings…
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Dwayne Johnson grew up with his father, famed wrestler Rocky Johnson, and was aware that his father had two children from a previous marriage. It turns out that Dwayne also has five other half-siblings, who all discovered each other through DNA testing. While Rocky’s five children didn’t get the chance to see their father before he passed, they have since met up and spent time with Rocky’s brother Ricky.
“They deserve to be loved, like any other child does, whether they’re rich and famous or not,” Ricky told Sports Illustrated. “We talked many times, just me and him, one on one. We fought about [the way he treated his family], argued about it. That’s the way he chose to live his life.”
While Dwayne has not reconnected with his siblings, the group say that he doesn’t “owe us anything” and they’re happy to just have one another.
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In 2007, a woman named Patricia Lee discovered she was Oprah Winfrey’s half-sister. Their mother had given up Patricia for adoption in 1963 when Oprah was nine years old and living with her father. Patricia held onto the secret for several years and then in 2011, she reached out to Oprah’s niece. After confirming things through a DNA test, Oprah’s family told her — and they all reunited on Thanksgiving Day.
“What’s so extraordinary about Patricia…is that [she’s] known this secret since 2007…She never once thought to go to the press,” Oprah said on her show. “I didn’t know if it was true or not true, that you are my sister…I had to meet you because I wanted to meet someone who had that kind of character.”
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Demi Lovato was 20 years old when she found out she had a half-sibling named Amber. It turns out that Demi’s father Patrick welcomed his oldest daughter a decade before Demi was born. Amber says she waited so long to reach out to Demi because she didn’t want to look like she was after her fame.
“I have an older sister I’ve never known my whole life, who’s in her 30s…She’s my half-sister, but I talked to her for the very first time in my life around when I turned 20,” Demi reportedly said during a radio station appearance. “‘Why haven’t you ever contacted me?’ She said, ‘Well, I never wanted you to think I wanted anything from you. So I’ve just been kind of waiting to see if you wanted a relationship.’ I thought that was so incredible.”
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Lindsay Lohan discovered she had a half-sister during an appearance on “Good Morning America.” The day prior, Lindsay’s father Michael had appeared on an episode of “Trisha Goddard,” where DNA tests confirmed that he had fathered an illegitimate love child while he was still married to Lindsay’s mom Dina. By the time Lindsay appeared on “GMA,” she hadn’t yet heard the news and appeared to be very surprised by it all.
“I didn’t even hear that, so thanks for the news. I don’t pay attention to any of it. I don’t really want to get into that. I want to stay on the positive side of things,” Lindsay said on the show.
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When Cheryl Burke’s father passed away, she ended up connecting with a half-sister named Ina. Cheryl says that while her father had told her a few years prior that she had another sister, she was still hesitant when Ina reached out to her. The pair eventually met up and Cheryl shared they instantly felt “like we had known each other forever.”
“I was a little nervous meeting face-to-face because you just never know. And then we met face-to-face and it’s like looking at yourself in the mirror. When you see someone on social media, you wonder do they still look like that? When I saw her in person, it was like looking in the mirror, like the freckles. We definitely look like our father,” Cheryl told People.
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Keegan-Michael Key was adopted as a child and when he traced his roots as an adult, he learned that he had two half-brothers, one of whom was the late comic book writer Dwayne McDuffie. Unfortunately, it sounds like the pair never got to meet before Dwayne passed away.
“My one brother worked for DC Comics. He worked for DC Comics and Marvel Comics and he was in charge of a department, of an animation department…for bringing characters of color on screen,” he said on the “You Made It Weird” podcast.
In 2017, Janice Dickinson and her two sisters learned that they had a long lost half-sister named Gloria “Bunny” Dickinson. It turns out that Janice’s father had a relationship prior to welcoming Janice and her sisters. The discovery was made after Bunny’s nephew “researched their family genealogy.” Bunny went on to reach out to her sister and they were later able to meet up in person — and Janice brought cameras along.
“From the moment Bunny called me, I knew that she was my sister because the cadence of her voice. Us Dickinson ladies are just tall Texan ravishing beauties,” she told Daily Mail, later adding, “I never knew. I didn’t know my father had been married before, let alone had another child.”
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In 2000, Bono learned that his cousin was actually his half-brother. Years prior, Bono’s father had an affair with his wife’s sister, resulting in a son named Scott. While Bono and Scott were raised to be cousins, they later learned the truth — and it ended up making a lot of sense to them.
“The truth is with Scott, we felt like brothers long before we knew we were. I love Scott and his mother, Barbara,” Bono wrote in his memoir.
9. KT Tunstall
KT Tunstall was the first celebrity to appear on “Long Lost Family” in 2019 and while she was on the show, she made a major discovery. KT, who was adopted, was able to track down the name of her biological father and learned that she had two half-sisters living in Scotland — Siobhan and Lesley-Anne.
“I’ve never had sisters — it’s a beautiful surprise. We did keep staring at each other, going, ‘We’ve got the same eyes, the same cheeks, the same dimples.’ It’s so weird,” KT said. “They grew up 35 miles from where I lived and I worked in the ice-cream shop in St Andrews and they’d regularly come. It’s pretty likely I’ve done them a double cone. I’ve found these two extraordinary women who I look like, I feel like, I have a total kinship with, really share deep personality traits and certainly share world views with.”