Did you know: Twilight’s Robert Pattinson is (kind of) related to Vlad Dracula
When it was first announced that Robert Pattinson—who had so far sent (mostly) teenage girls into an obsessive frenzy as Twilight’s enigmatic and, let’s be honest, super hot Edward Cullen—would be taking on the double-edged role of the Gotham-based superhero in Matt Reeves’ 2022 The Batman, a second round of hysteria surrounding the actor arose. This time however, his already impressive fan base of fan girls tilted more towards a male-dominated audience of film bros.
Though we’ve got nothing but praise for one of the few comic book superheroes to have a feel of ‘reality’ about them, to us, Pattinson will always be the perfect vampire lead. That is if you take the masterpiece that is Good Time out of the equation completely. But we digress.
For those of you out there who agree with us on exactly how perfect the actor was for his role as Bella Swan’s tortured lover, buckle up because we’ve got a pretty mind-blowing fact you might enjoy. As it turns out, Pattinson is a distant kin of Vlad III, who you may know as Vlad the Impaler or Vlad Dracula—we weren’t joking when we said perfect.
As you probably know, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which was published in 1897, was the first book to make a connection between Vlad Dracula and vampirism. According to Wikipedia, Stoker had his attention drawn to the blood-sucking vampires of Romanian folklore after reading Emily Gerard’s 1885 article about Transylvanian superstitions. That being said, it is common knowledge that Stoker did not know much about the infamous ruler and that the Irish author based the vampire character on quite a few other people as well.
It should also be noted that, as amazing as it is to learn that Pattinson is somehow related to Vlad the Impaler, the man lived over 550 years ago, meaning a lot of people are in fact related to him. But let’s not dwell on the past too much—let’s delve into exactly how the actor is related (even if distantly) to Dracula.
In 2010, Anastasia Tyler, a genealogist at the American genealogy company Ancestry, revealed that Pattinson and the Transylvanian leader are connected through their relationship to the British royal family. In other words, Prince William and Prince Harry are Pattinson’s distant cousins. Making Vlad III their distant uncle.
“Tracing Pattinson’s family back to Vlad was difficult research, but the pieces that unravelled created the perfect accompaniment to the Twilight saga,” said Tyler. “Without any myth or magic, we find royalty and vampires lurking in Pattinson’s life—making his story just as supernatural as the one he’s playing on screen.”
Funnily enough, it was also found that Stephenie Meyer, the author of the Twilight book series, is connected to the two Princes’ lineage—and therefore to Dracula. Oh, and in case you’re more of a Pattinson fan because of his role in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, you might also be interested in the fact that in 2009, Ancestry genealogists said that actress Emma Watson, who plays teen witch Hermione Granger, is related to a 16th century woman accused of witchcraft. Spooky, right?
