Cole Sprouse has seen the headline about his family tree, and his verdict is in: “clickbait.” After Dylan Sprouse joked on his podcast that he and Cole are “children of incest,” Cole took to Instagram Stories to roll his eyes at the coverage, according to Us Weekly. The backstory involves Ancestry, the California Gold Rush and an almost unbelievable number of twins.
What Cole actually said
Cole’s response landed on Tuesday, October 20, 2026, the same day the podcast episode aired. Us Weekly reported that he shared a screenshot of a news headline about Dylan’s comments on his Instagram Stories and called it clickbait.
“No media training on earth can prep you to read this clickbait headline at 10am,” Cole wrote, per Us Weekly.
Honestly? Fair. Nobody wants that greeting with their morning coffee.
Cole wasn’t done. According to Us Weekly, he posted a second Story to clear up a separate, apparently recurring mix-up: he is not Dylan, and he is not married to Victoria’s Secret model Barbara Palvin.
“It’s that time of year when I get tagged in Victoria’s Secret content ’cause people still don’t know who married Barbara,” he wrote, as reported by Us Weekly.
For the record, that would be Dylan. He married Palvin in July 2023, and the couple have one child together. Cole, meanwhile, is the one you know from Riverdale. Identical twins have to deal with a lot.
The Gold Rush plot twist
So where did the wild claim come from? It started with a genealogy project.
TMZ reported that Dylan made the “children of incest” remark during an episode of his Wildmen podcast, after using Ancestry to research his family tree. The joke is far less scandalous than it sounds. It refers to distant ancestors more than a century ago, not to anything recent.
According to TMZ, Dylan explained that both sides of his family traveled to California during the Gold Rush and were joined by marriage in the late 1800s. The two branches then went their separate ways for generations, before reconnecting through his parents’ marriage.
In other words, his mom and dad apparently turned out to be very, very distant relatives without realizing it.
“It’s my dad and my mom. They had no idea. So, then I’m looking at this, and I go, ‘What the hell?'” Dylan said on the podcast, according to Us Weekly.
That reaction is pretty much everyone who has ever clicked one too many branches on a genealogy site.
Seven sets of twins
Dylan didn’t stumble onto this by accident. TMZ reported that his suspicion started after he learned his father’s uncles were identical twins. That sent him digging, and what he found was a family with seven sets of twins in four generations.
“We had seven sets of twins in four generations … because it’s the same family!” Dylan said on Wildmen, per Us Weekly.
To be clear, that’s Dylan’s comedic theory, delivered on a podcast, not a medical finding. But you have to admit that seven sets of twins in four generations is a statistic that makes you squint.
And naturally, he wanted to share the news with the one person who could fully appreciate it. TMZ reported that Dylan called Cole to tell him about the discovery and sent him photographic evidence. Cole’s reaction, according to Dylan? He refused to look at it and hung up.
Some things a brother simply does not need to see.
Dylan is having the best time
While Cole was calling the headline clickbait, Dylan was apparently thrilled with it. Us Weekly reported that Dylan shared the very same headline on his own Instagram Stories and leaned all the way into the bit.
“Ngl (not gonna lie) they cooked with this headline… printing this out and hanging it over the communal family bed,” Dylan wrote, per Us Weekly.
So there you have it: one twin wincing, the other twin framing it. That split will feel very familiar to anyone who grew up watching the pair as Zack and Cody on The Suite Life of Zack & Cody. The brothers, born August 4, 1992, have spent more than three decades being compared to each other. It’s oddly comforting that they still react to the same thing in completely opposite ways.
The story spread fast. Along with TMZ and Us Weekly, E! News and Page Six covered it on October 20 and 21.
What happens next is anyone’s guess. Maybe Cole eventually opens those photos. Maybe Dylan spends another episode of Wildmen unpacking his great-great-grandparents. Either way, the takeaway is simple: the Sprouse family tree has a lot of twins in it, and only one of these two is enjoying the attention.
And please, for Cole’s sake, stop tagging him in the Victoria’s Secret posts.
