Dylan Sprouse says he and twin brother Cole are ‘children of incest’

When the actor Dylan Sprouse was tracing the branches of his family tree he found they were a little more joined than expected as he said that he and his brother Cole were 'children of incest'.

They're best known as the stars of The Suite Life of Zack and Cody, but it turns out that Dylan is a big fan of tracing his ancestry and during an appearance on the Wildmen podcast he talked about a recent revelation over how close his family really was.

He explained that over time more information has been revealed about his family history, and said that once upon a time his mum and dad's families both came out to California in the 19th Century during the gold rush and married.

The branches then split apart again for a long time before coming together once more with Dylan and Cole's parents, with the actor saying 'my family tree goes like this' mimicking the paths branching apart and then converging again.

He said: "One side of my family actually found gold, which is pretty cool. One side found it, the other side did not but stayed in California.

Dylan Sprouse said he'd been digging around on Ancestry when he learned something big about his family tree (Leon Bennett/Getty Images)

"The side that found it went back to, I think it was was like, North Carolina. And then took the family and moved back out to California and then like built, so ended up both families living there.

"Then they married back in like the late 1800s. So the families married in California in the late 1800s. And then they diverged. And then they married again with my mom and my dad like last generation."

This was quite the revelation, but when it came time to share it with his brother that got shut down pretty quickly.

Dylan said that he called Cole and showed his brother a picture of their interconnected family tree, only to be told Cole was 'not looking at that' and he hung up the phone.

There's a reason they say that ignorance is bliss.

Dylan learned that several generations back from his parents the family trees had come together before (Francois Durand/Getty Images)

Suspicions first arose when Dylan was talking to his dad's side of the family and learned that his father's uncles were identical twins, something he'd previously only associated with his mum's side of the family.

He said it was weird that his family had seven sets of twins in four generations, which he described as 'crazy'.

"The reason we have a lot of twins is is because it's the same family!" he said on the podcast.

The actor agreed with the assessment that he was 'four generations removed from incest' as he discussed the surprising family turn, saying his parents had no idea they were related further up the family tree.