They’ve gone from “Friends” to kissing cousins.
Matthew Perry and Courteney Cox played a married couple on the hit 90s sitcom, but in real life the actors are distant cousins, according to a new report published a day before the much-hyped “Friends” reunion hits HBO.
Perry, 51 and Cox, 56 are 11th cousins, researchers at the genealogy website MyHeritage discovered, according to CNN.
The actors who portrayed Chandler Bing and Monica Geller are both related to William Osbern Haskell III and Ellen Haskell, a married couple that lived in England in the 17th century, the report said.
Ellen and her two sons immigrated to America in 1635. Perry can trace his linage to her son William, whose brother Roger is a direct ancestor of Cox, according to the report.
“We went into this line very deeply, we checked every name. We found a lot of records that support it, and we have confidence that they are related,” Roi Mandel, the head of research at MyHeritage, told the cable network.
Researchers said the friends and family connection is less shocking than a sitcom plot twist.
“This is not such a surprise. It makes sense that when you go so many generations back, the chances of people being connected are higher,” Mandel reportedly said.
The family tree also has another famous branch; researchers found that the distant cousins are also faintly related to Lady Gaga, though didn’t give details on how.