Bill O'Reilly of the CBS series 60 Minutes was disgusted to find out that he is related to his long-time rival Bill Maher who hosts HBO's Real Time. O'Reilly's genealogy was researched by the PBS series Finding Your Roots and the two men were found to be very, very distant cousins.
Finding Your Roots investigates the genealogy of famous people to find out who they are related to. They use both traditional genealogical research methods and scientific genetic means to conduct their analysis.
O'Reilly revealed the news of his surprising link to Maher on Fox News on Tuesday and his shock was evident. When recapping his reaction to being told that Maher is related to him, O'Reilley said, "I blinked. I blinked a lot. Apparently the news so disgusted O'Reilly, he even felt the need to ward off the the bad ju-ju by making the sign of the cross. O'reilly's tip of the day, was inspired by this epiphany: "You can pick your friends. You cannot select your relatives."
CBS News reveals that CeCe Moore, Finding Your Roots DNA consultant, attributes the connection between the two polar opposite TV show hosts as, "a common male ancestor from Kingdom of Breifne in Ireland, which was in place from the 13th through the 17th centuries."
While Bill O'Reilly was disgusted by the revelation, Maher's reaction was far more mild. Huffington Post quotes Maher as saying, "It just shows you what a great place America is, because we're about as opposite as you can possibly get," in the upcoming PBS series episode.
After discovering O'Reilly and Maher are related, Finding Your Roots host, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. decided that having both conflicting personalities in one episode was simply irresistible. So tune in to PBS on January 12th at 8 P.M. EDT. It should be interesting at the least.
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