Oscar Night 2017: Surprising Relatives

This year’s Oscars was one for the history books. Best Supporting Actor winner Mahershala Ali made Academy Award history last night by becoming the first Muslim actor to win an Oscar. Viola Davis, the first African American actress to receive three Oscar nominations, finally won her first Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress. With her win, she has become the first African American to achieve the “Triple Crown of Acting,” winning an Emmy, a Tony and an Oscar. Full of surprises, the ceremony ended with one of the most shocking mixups in the history of the Academy Awards when it was revealed that the highly acclaimed drama Moonlight  had actually won Best Picture and not the mistakenly announced musical, La La Land.

In light of the show’s surprises, we thought it would be fun to take a look at some of the surprising family connections between a few of the night’s biggest stars.

The ceremony got off to a rousing start with a lively performance by Justin Timberlake singing his Oscar nominated song “Can’t Stop the Feeling” from the animated movie Trolls. Justin got the audience on their feet and dancing to the tune. Although he didn’t go home with the coveted award, he did get to have a small reunion with fellow Mouseketeer Ryan Gosling, who was nominated for Best Actor. The former roommates are also 19th cousins!

This year’s host was late night comedian Jimmy Kimmel, who was in no hurry to quell his ongoing “feud” with Matt Damon. The movie star was nominated as a producer for the film, Manchester by the Sea, which was up for Best Picture. After taking a look at how they are connected in Geni’s World Family Tree, we found that Matt is Jimmy’s first cousin once removed’s wife’s third great uncle’s wife’s third great grandfather’s wife’s 11th great nephew. Jimmy would probably be glad to know that a direct blood relationship hasn’t been found yet.

Although Matt didn’t go home with the night’s top prize, it was a good night for his childhood friend and Manchester by the Sea star Casey Affleck. Ben Affleck’s younger brother went home with the Academy Award for Best Actor. He’s also Matt’s 10th cousin once removed!

La La Land star Emma Stone walked away with her first Oscar win for Best Actress. Emma faced some tough competition, which included legendary actress Meryl Streep, who was up for her 20th Academy Award nomination. Meryl currently holds the record for the most acting Oscar nominations for a single person. Another fun piece of trivia: both actresses were also nominated in the same category two years ago for Best Supporting Actress. And they are also related – 16th cousins thrice removed!

Did your favorites win last night? How are you related to this year’s Academy Award nominees?