Acting legend Sharon Stone has claimed she is a descendant of royals. The 67-year-old Hollywood icon shared the revelation during an appearance on The Drew Barrymore Show on Wednesday, where she was promoting her new role in Euphoria.
Stone's Family History
Stone explained that her father grew up in a wealthy household with royal ties but did not inherit anything due to old family rules that prevented women from passing on wealth. This forced him to take low-level jobs in rural Pennsylvania, leaving the family in poverty.
It was only when Stone moved to New York City to work as a high-end fashion model that she experienced financial comfort for the first time.
'My dad had come from just inordinate wealth,' the Casino star told Barrymore. 'He had come from a long line of royalty, in fact, and came to America. In his family tree, they were the original oil drillers in Oil City, Pennsylvania.'
However, a tragic twist of fate changed everything. 'They were drilling an oil well and it blew and killed everyone and all of a sudden his mother and her three kids, well, they didn't get the money because the money didn't go to women. The women didn't have rights,' she added. 'So the money went to the oldest male relative who was an 18-year-old boy of my great uncles. And so an 18-year-old shouldn't get all the oil money.'
The family was forced to work menial jobs. Stone noted that her grandmother became a nurse in an asylum and lived with her children in a barn stall. Her father eventually bought back the family home, which was then a mansion in ruins.
Stone also described her mother's difficult upbringing: 'My mom came from incredible poverty and was removed from her home for child abuse. And she was given to someone at nine to be their maid, laundress, cook. That's how she grew up until they married at 16 and 17.'
Discovery on Finding Your Roots
Last year, Stone appeared on PBS's Finding Your Roots, where host Henry Louis Gates Jr. revealed that Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor, is her 38th great-grandfather. 'Charlemagne is your 38th great-grandfather. The first holy Roman Emperor. He was a mean dude,' Gates told Stone, who was visibly stunned.
Charlemagne, who stood 6ft 4in, reigned from AD 768 to 814 and fathered at least 18 children. He conquered Saxony, invaded Lombardy and northern Spain, and was crowned emperor by Pope Leo III in 800. He is considered the 'Father of Europe' for his administrative reforms and standardization of weights and measures.
Stone also learned that her 31st great-grandfather was Hugh Capet, a 10th-century successor to Charlemagne who made Paris the center of power in France. Her three times great-grandfather, George Greggs, emigrated from England to Pennsylvania, worked as a coal miner, and fought for the Union in the American Civil War.
Not a Unique Claim
Stone is not the only celebrity to discover a link to Charlemagne. In 2016, Sir Richard Branson boasted of the 'extraordinary family fact.' However, geneticists note that such connections are not remarkable. Professor Adam Rutherford stated in 2017 that 'literally everyone' from Europe has a direct lineage to Charlemagne, but celebrities are more likely to have the means to prove it.
Professor Rutherford and a team from University College London calculated that everyone living in Europe today is related to everyone who lived there in the 10th century and before. He also pointed out that every person in Europe is directly descended from King Edward III within 21 to 24 generations.
