The Strange Thing Paul Rudd Found Out About His Parents

As Paul Rudd stretches his acting chops as the questionable, cult-leader-like therapist in Apple TV+'s "The Shrink Next Door," the internet still sings his praises while he continues defying the aging process. Rudd has won acclaim in his many roles, from the eponymous Ant-Man, to Brian Fantana in "Anchorman," to love interest Josh in his breakout film "Clueless," to People's Sexiest Man Alive in 2021 — right down to his recent Super Bowl commercial with Seth Rogen — to name only a sampling. His fans also love to see him as himself in television appearances, such as his viral guest spots on "Conan."

Rudd had a running joke that he enjoyed playing on Conan O'Brien and his viewers, which he landed one final time during the last week of O'Brien's TBS talk show. Rudd knows full well the awkwardness of talk show appearances meant to promote a current project, usually by showing a clip. Instead, he created his own version of Rickrolling by setting up for a clip of his latest project, be it Rudd's final appearance on "Friends" when the tradition originated, or his turn on "Anchorman," or "Ant-Man," where he built the character into the clip, and instead played a bizarre segment from a 1988 alien movie called "Mac and Me." Through the years, Conan seemed to fall for it every time.

But Rudd got a little surprise of his own, learning something unexpected about his parents, when he appeared on an episode of "Finding Your Roots" in 2019.

It turns out Paul Rudd has more in common with his "Clueless" character Josh than he thought — or at least his parents do. "Clueless" is a 1995 modernization of Jane Austen's novel "Emma," with Alicia Silverstone as the Emma character (here called Cher). When Emma falls in love with her brother-in-law's brother Mr. Knightley, Cher falls in love with her former stepbrother, Josh, played by Rudd. All that is to say that interfamily relationships were not that uncommon, and it wasn't too unlikely for cousins to marry.

Turns out, this is true of Rudd's parents. While Rudd appeared (sporting a particularly old-fashioned-looking mustache) on a 2019 episode of "Finding Your Roots," the celebrity genealogy show on PBS, host Henry Louis Gates Jr. revealed to Rudd that his parents are actually second cousins. His mother Gloria and his late father Michael were both born in England, she in Surbiton, he in Edgware, per Mental Floss. Paul was born in Passaic, New Jersey, and the family moved around a bit, eventually settling in Kansas when he was 10 years old. Paul learned on the show that his paternal great-grand-uncle was also his maternal great-grandfather (via NJ Advance Media).

Always one to make jokes, particularly in the face of anti-Semitic hate due to his Ashkenazi Jewish roots, Rudd responded to the news of his parents' relationship with typical humor. "[This] explains why I have six nipples," he said. "Does this make my son also my uncle?"

"Finding Your Roots" host Henry Louis Gates, Jr. likes to investigate celebrities' ancestries in order to tear down ideas about racial purity. "We're all related in the history of oppression," Gates said of "women, Jews," and "black people" to NJ Advance Media. 

When Paul Rudd appeared on the series, they discussed the anti-Semitism that Rudd's family faced over many years. The prejudice led his grandfather Davis Rudnitsky, an Ashkenazi Jew, to change his name to David Rudd. As Paul explained to Gates on the show (via Insider), "I think the way I heard it was, they all decided to change their name to Rudd. They couldn't get work cause no one was hiring Jews in London," he said. "And then he got a job at a kosher butcher shop."

Just as Rudd's great-grandfather, Samuel Rudnitsky, joined the Russian Army in 1895 to escape the growing anti-Semitism there, grandfather David Rudd decided to fight against fascism in England. "He had served in World War II to fight fascism, and he comes home to find fascism," Gates told Paul (via NJ). Reading a Russian Army draft certificate for Samuel, Paul reflected, "Jew, unmarried, illiterate. Wow, what a catch."

Rudd also faced anti-Semitism growing up in Kansas, and told Gates he was often disparagingly called "Jewboy." But Rudd is proud of his roots. "I certainly feel as if being Jewish is in the marrow of my bones," he told Gates.