Imagine finding out that your father isn’t really your father. This has happened to many people on this planet. But now imagine being Julia Roberts, a superstar actress who played in many great movies, and won an oscar, knowing your family hasn’t had a proper last name since your ancestors.
This is what happened to him while participating in the popular PBS show “Finding Your Roots” hosted by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. In this very interesting show, they explore the stories of the ancestors of many stars, and It is always full of surprises for them. But for Julia Roberts, as you can see in the following sequence, It is on another level.
Is Julia Roberts Actually “Roberts”? Julia Roberts learned through DNA that her “great-grandfather” Willis Roberts could not be related to her. Watch his reaction from tonight’s season premiere #FindingYourRoots here -> pic.twitter.com/MAd8Mtzlza
— Henry Louis Gates Jr (@HenryLouisGates) January 4, 2023
In this short sequence, our host tells Julia Roberts that Willis Roberts can’t be her great-grandfather because he’s already dead. So Julia asks “Oh wait, but am I not Roberts?” and Henry Louis Gates Jr. responded that researchers searched in Douglas County, GA for records of John’s father and they found nothing.
But why didn’t they find anything? Even if he wasn’t Roberts, his real great-grandfather should be somewhere on the family tree. Well, there’s a reason why we don’t know.
Born from a secret relationship
To understand why Julia Roberts isn’t Roberts, we need to get the full story. His great-grandfather, John Pendleton Roberts, was the son of Rhoda Suttle, his great-grandmother. But by the time she was pregnant with John, Willis Roberts was dead, so she couldn’t be Willis’ child.
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The only solution is that Rhoda Suttle has an affair with another man, and has a baby with him. That’s what she did, but she never told anyone that John wasn’t Willis’ son and gave him her husband’s name. But who is the real ancestor? Have we found out?
Yes, we do, and thanks to DNA testing. They found out Julia Roberts was a descendant of a man named Henry McDonald Mitchell Jr. And the reason why Rhoda kept John’s father’s true identity a secret was that Henry was married to a woman named Sarah at the time. That is why he decided to give the name Roberts to his son in reality, to protect the secret of his relationship. Finally, Willis Roberts died in 1864 while John Pendleton Roberts was born in 1878, over a decade later. This proves it is impossible for Willis to be John’s father.
Now that we know the whole story, let’s get back to Julia Roberts. He just found out that his last name wasn’t actually his last name for three generations. He now understood he was not Roberts.
Julia Roberts’ reaction
Julia Roberts couldn’t believe what she just heard. He was silent for a few seconds, hands on his head, and not knowing how to react to this shocking news, he said: “Wow. Is my head still straight? Am I facing you?” He, then added “Absolutely blew my mind”
Because this story doesn’t just concern him, it involves his entire family, and that means his family name won’t fit for decades. For more than a century his family has kept the name unrelated to Willis Roberts, which is why he asked the host: “So we’re Mitchells?”.
But of course, It’s Julia Roberts, so it’s easy for her to calm down and come back to herself. He said: “you know I can still embrace the idea that my family is my family”. And he was right. Even though his name hasn’t been a proper name for decades, It’s just a name, and It doesn’t change the fact that his family is still his family. The family tree only had a slight change in the middle, but in reality, it didn’t really change anything for him and his family.
Finally, he finally said he: “prefers the name Roberts” and he still feels like Roberts, no matter what happens. And I think we can all agree on that. Julia Roberts will always be Julia Roberts to us.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
