Is Bob Odenkirk really King Charles III’s cousin?

Hollywood can be a bizarre place. From questionable and downright nasty rap beefs to strange and sometimes unexplained deaths, there’s no shortage of head-scratching moments in Tinseltown. Then, just when you think things couldn’t get stranger (remember when Jared Leto wore a catsuit?), another headline comes along that is wild enough to make you question your own existence. 

That’s where Better Call Saul alum Bob Odenkirk comes in. On a recent episode of PBS’ genealogy series Finding Your Roots, the actor discovered that his bloodline has some royal connections, though he was quick to distance himself from his very distant relatives. So, in a question this writer thought might never be asked, is Bob Odenkirk really King Charles III‘s cousin?

Is Bob Odenkirk really King Charles III’s cousin?

As revealed on Finding Your Roots’ most recent episode, Bob Odenkirk really is related to the newly crowned King Charles III. Odenkirk and the monarch are found to be eleventh cousins, connected through the actor’s fifth great grandfather. Finding Your Roots host  Henry Louis Gates Jr. traced Odenkirk’s genealogy back five generations to one Friedrich Carl Steinholz, who was born in Plön, Germany in 1755. 

That man’s mother, Maria Catharina Bein, conceived him out of wedlock (gasp!) with the Duke of Plön, who was related to the royal families of Europe due to intermarriage (a messy fact not covered in The Crown). For those tracing the threads, while distant enough to ensure he won’t be attending any royal funerals, this means Odenkirk is a cousin to King Charles III on his father’s side.

The actor revealed he didn’t have much knowledge of this side of the family since his father, Walter, left the family when he was 15 years old. While this writer might’ve already been drafting letters to Prince Harry (perhaps more like love letters), Odenkirk had a stern reaction to news of his royal roots. The actor affirmed his status as an American, and said he wasn’t a monarchist and doesn’t “believe in that.” 

Odenkirk said that while he understands why “society built itself around” monarchs, he thinks we have ultimately “gotten to a better place” with democracy (a system some might argue is still shaky at best). In any case, maybe Odenkirk got a whiff of what a fancy royal soiree might be like, since he later joked that he might “change his mind” on his monarchy beliefs.  

Odenkirk isn’t the only celebrity to discover his monarchical ancestry. In a 2019 episode of Finding Your Roots, Good Morning America star Michael Strahan discovered that he was related to King Charlemagne, the first Emperor of the Romans who is also related to King Charles III. Maybe Hollywood royalty and actual royalty aren’t so distant after all?