Look Who’s Related: Taylor Swift and Katy Perry

In a recent interview with the U.K’s Capital FM, singer Katy Perry was in for a genealogical surprise when host Sian Welby shared that she and Taylor Swift are distant cousins. Although Perry dismissed it as a bit of fan fiction, it turns out they really are related! MyHeritage found through Geni’s World Family Tree that the two are in fact 9th cousins!

Although the pandemic derailed her planned destination wedding with actor Orlando Bloom this summer, Perry is still up for a life changing 2020. Not only is she soon due to give birth to her first child with Bloom, but she will also release her fifth studio album Smile at the end of this month.

This summer has also been huge for cousin Taylor Swift, who dropped her eighth studio album Folklore in July. Swift’s surprise album broke numerous streaming records and sold over 1.3 million copies on the first day. She also became the first artist in history to debut at No. 1 on both the Billboard Hot 100 and Billboard 200 charts in the same week.

Swift was inspired to write and record this new collection of songs while in isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her song, “The Last Great American Dynasty,” tells the story of Rebekah Harkness, the wife of Stand Oil heir William Hale Harkness. Harkness once owned the Rhode Island “Holiday House” that is now owned by Swift. The Rhode Island home is not the only connection between Swift and Harkness. Although a direct blood relationship has yet to be found, thanks to the power of the World Family Tree, we can still see how people across time connect them to each other in the tree.

In a departure from her usual form of storytelling, the album also includes three songs that tell the story of teenage love from three different perspectives. Swift recently confirmed that the names of the characters at the center of the story (James, Inez, and Betty) were inspired by the children of her good friends, Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds. Through the World Family Tree, we found that Lively and Swift are also 9th cousins!