Hold the front page! Marilyn Monroe is Dakota Johnson’s ninth cousin three times removed
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- MyHeritage revealed via press release that Marilyn Monroe is Dakota Johnson's ninth cousin three times removed, with shared ancestry tracing to Richard and Charity Tydings, 17th-century English settlers in Maryland.
- Monroe descends from the Tydings' daughter Pretitia, while Dakota Johnson and her father Don Johnson descend from younger sister Mary, per the genealogy release.
- Dakota Johnson and Ellen Burstyn will star as Monroe in Maggie Gyllenhaal's short film "Flesh Impact," premiering at the Venice Film Festival to mark Monroe's 100th birthday, with Burstyn playing "a version of Monroe the world never got to see."
- A photo of Johnson styled as Monroe was released ahead of the premiere, which the article notes bears a striking resemblance to the original icon.
- The article situates the Johnson-Monroe reveal alongside prior genealogy-platform finds linking celebrities to figures they portray — Taylor Swift to Emily Dickinson and Robert Pattinson to Vlad the Impaler.
Why it matters: The Monroe-Johnson connection gives Gyllenhaal's centennial film a built-in biographical hook: a descendant playing her ancestor on the occasion of Monroe's 100th birthday. The article catalogs prior celebrity-ancestry finds by genealogy sites — Taylor Swift to Emily Dickinson and Robert Pattinson to Vlad the Impaler — framing the Johnson-Monroe reveal as the latest in this recurring news cycle.
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