For years, people looked at Sydney Sweeney and saw Marilyn Monroe.
The comparisons came with the blonde hair, the old Hollywood glamour and the dresses the Euphoria actress has chosen for her most talked-about appearances. In February 2026, she received an award in Santa Barbara wearing a vintage dress that echoed the one on Monroe’s first Life cover, from April 1952. And in December 2025, she arrived at the premiere of The Housemaid in a white dress with a feather skirt that many associated with The Seven Year Itch.
But now there’s a detail no one expected: according to research by MyHeritage, they are ninth cousins once removed. The connection runs through their fathers, Steven Sweeney and Charles Stanley Gifford, and goes back to Ezra Perry, an English settler who lived in Sandwich, Massachusetts, between 1625 and 1689.
Roi Mandel, the platform’s director of research, explained that the constant comparisons between the two inspired them to search their archives. Sweeney, 29, has yet to comment on the discovery.
