Taylor Swift is related to a French king and Johnny Depp, genealogist says. Here's how (2024)

A love for music appears to run in Taylor Swift's family — the royal family that is.

The 34-year-old international pop star is related to King Louis XIV, the French monarch who built the Palace of Versailles, director of research at MyHeritage Roi Mandel told TODAY.com.

Swift is King Louis XIV's eighth cousin 11 times removed, per Mandel.

Speaking to TODAY.com, Mandel calls the discovery "amazing." Swift’s tie to royalty is “not rare," he says, but his team was not expecting to see this kind of connection.”

"It's not rare because when you look Europe ... we saw how all the houses of royals in Europe are connected to each other. They're all cousins and they are the founding fathers, as they say. Their descendants eventually, many generations later, emigrated to the U.S.," Mandel says.

King Louis XIV ruled from 1643 to 1715 — a total of 72 years, the longest of any European sovereign to this day. Queen Elizabeth II, for context, reigned for 70 years.

He had a public love for music and culture.

“The connection to Louis XIV is interesting because XIV is the king that built the magnificent Palace of Versailles, where all the parties were spectacular,” Mandel says. “He used to play a lot of music there. He used to play the guitar. He was passionate about cultural music.”

The genealogist explains that their team began by looking at the Swift family's ties to Europe and discovered that the singer's ancestors on her paternal line were among the first settlers to arrive in Massachusetts from England.

From her ancestry in Great Britain, Mandel's team was able to find her connection to the French royal.

Speaking of Swift's ties to France, the "Fortnight" singer will be performing in Paris on the "Eras Tour" through Sunday, May 12, after which time she'll head to Stockholm, Sweden. Swift will return back to France for two nights to play shows in Lyon on June 2 to 3.

Mandel also notes that Swift has another unexpected relative: Johnny Depp, who is her seventh cousin once removed.

Earlier this year, Ancestry revealed to TODAY that Swift has a fellow tortured poet in her family, Emily Dickinson. According to the genealogy company, the writers are sixth cousins, three times removed.

“Swift and Dickinson both descend from a 17th century English immigrant (Swift’s 9th great-grandfather and Dickinson’s 6th great-grandfather who was an early settler of Windsor, Connecticut),” Ancestry shared at the time.

“Taylor Swift’s ancestors remained in Connecticut for six generations until her part of the family eventually settled in northwestern Pennsylvania, where they married into the Swift family line,” Ancestry added,

Though Swift has never publicly stated her knowledge of the relation, the "Anti-Hero" singer has previously referenced the popular 19th century poet, comparing herself to Dickinson's family in 2022 while receivingthe Songwriter-Artist of the Decade Award from the Nashville Songwriters Association International.

“If my lyrics sound like a letter written by Emily Dickinson’s great-grandmother while sewing a lace curtain, that’s me writing in the 'quill' genre,” Swift said at the time.