The diversity within Black heritage is truly amazing.

And of course, having Black heritage doesn't automatically make you a Black person. Being Black is more than just skin deep; it's a culture and a shared set of experiences. Several celebrities and public figures have recently discovered or revealed that they have Black roots. Only 60 years ago, the news of having a Black grandparent might have been kept a secret. But today, those with Black origins are reclaiming their heritage or, at the very least, acknowledging their roots. 

Yes, the Pope has Black roots. His maternal grandfather was Haitian, and his grandmother was of Creole descent, from New Orleans. Pope Leo XIV's brother, John Prevost, spoke briefly with Gayle King about his grandparents. “I am aware that my mother’s parents were from Haiti, and we are aware that her sisters were all born in New Orleans,” he stated. “But other than that, I really couldn’t tell you a whole lot.”

Records show that Prevost’s mother, Mildred Martinez, “was the mixed-race daughter of Black property owners, the Haitian-born Joseph Martinez and New Orleans native Louise Baquié, a Creole.”

“I’m white-passing,” Halsey has stated. Her father is Black, and her mother is of European descent. “I’ve accepted that about myself and have never tried to control anything about Black culture that’s not mine. I’m proud to be in a biracial family, I’m proud of who I am, and I’m proud of my hair… I look like a White girl, but I don’t feel like one. I’m a Black woman. So it’s been weird navigating that. When I was growing up I didn’t know if I was supposed to love TLC or Britney.” 

Former American Idol contestant and Grammy-winning artist Tori Kelly is of Afro-Latina heritage. In an interview on Z90 with Tre she stated, “My dad is Jamaican/Puerto Rican, and my mum is Irish and German.”

Jason Kidd has spoken about his background, having a Black father and Irish-American mother. "I never felt racism toward being a mixed kid," he told Andscape. "If there was, my parents did a really good job of protecting and shielding me from it where it didn’t affect me, nor did I hear it. I had cousins that were white and cousins that were Black. I just looked at them as family. My parents did a great job of helping me understand that we shouldn’t be judged on color. You should be looked upon as a person. I give them my thanks for that."

Wentworth Miller, best known for playing Michael Scofield in Prison Break, is mixed. “My father is Black and my mother is white,” Wentworth told the Los Angeles Times. “College is really when the whole ‘Who am I?’ process begins,” he continued, noting that personal discoveries of racial identity “just never came up" when he was a kid. “To be mixed race is to be between two communities. You have to define yourself for other people, or you’ll be defined by them. I would say, ‘My father is Black,’ and this expression would come across their face, this look in their eyes ... and then they’d associate me with every stereotype they had in their minds about being Black.” 

Pete Wentz, of the band Fall Out Boy, is mixed-race. His mother is half-Black. “The only thing that was a little weird is our family is mixed race, and it was a super-white neighborhood," Pete stated.  "So it was like, ‘Oh…I don’t look like any of the people that I live near in this community.’ But there was no great sadness to it. If anything, it made me be like, ‘Well, I’m just who I am.’ It gave me armor.”

Rolling Stone interviewed Slash, the Guns N' Roses guitarist whose mother is Black, asking, "You joked that 'it’s weird to be a rock musician who’s Black and British, because a lot of British rockers want to be Black.'" To this, Slash responded, "It’s never been part of my makeup, to be able to differentiate myself from anybody else because of color. I went through a lot of that as a kid — in school you’re pigeonholed into being more aware of your background. When I started doing my own thing, especially playing guitar, it wasn’t so much of a thing. I never really cared to have to identify one way or another." 

In 2021, Rebecca directed Passing, a film starring Tessa Thompson, adapted from the 1929 novel of the same name by Harlem Renaissance writer Nella Larsen. Rebecca's father was white, but her mother had both Black and Native American roots. She has spoken candidly about her own family using their lighter complexion to "pass" as white. “I think in any family that has a legacy of passing, it’s very tricky, because, sadly, you inherit all of the shame and none of the pride,” she stated.

Victoria's Secret model Adriana Lima has long identified as Afro-Brazilian. On their official website, the brand describes Lima as "Portuguese, Native Brazilian, African, Japanese, Swiss, and West Indian," while noting "she personally identifies as Afro-Brazilian."

Maya's mother was the famous Black soul singer Minnie Riperton, and her father is Ashkenazi Jewish. “I never felt like my Black cousins," she once admitted.  "I felt loved, but I didn’t feel culturally... I was the kid that lived in California who didn’t grow up around the family.”

“I was just completely lost,” she continued, as she spoke on losing her mother and wrestling with her identity as a Black woman. “My mom died when I was 7, so when you don’t have a woman — First of all, hair products that exist today did not exist when I was a child. The detangling system that I use now on my children is light-years beyond anything that would’ve ever happened to me growing up in Westwood. My neighbors used to say, ‘We could hear you screaming across the street.’ My aunties would come to town from Chicago and get the marcel iron out.”

The Rock, who is better known these days by his government name of Dwayne Johnson, is Black and Samoan. “At a very early age from my mom and my dad, it was always ‘what you are is perfect’ and ‘what you are is cool.’ Black culture, Samoan culture,” he stated when speaking with Trevor Noah. “We come from a world of pro wrestling. And at that time, Trevor, if you think about it, pro wrestling was nowhere near the global juggernaut that it is today. And it was, it was a very small subculture. So be proud of everything that you are out of the gate; it was always ‘be proud’… It’s a cool thing. And I got to tell you, as you go down the road of life, you start to realize just how special culture is, how special all of our culture is.”

Mariah Carey has spoken about her ethnicity often throughout her career. She has an Irish-American mother and a Black father. "There’s a thing where there’s a constant theme with being a woman in a male-dominated industry," she once said. "Then I was a woman of color with all this ambiguity and had people deciding how they’re going to market me at the time.”

"...Being Black and of mixed race," she continued. "There’s always been this, you know, this stigma that white people have but then there’s this thing where lightness is perceived as privilege. But really if you’re put in the situations that I was as a kid when you’re only in white neighborhoods…you’re put in this situation where you’re not dark enough to scare them into not saying anything or even remind them 'let me not say this because it might offend this person.'”

Sofia is the daughter of iconic Black musician Lionel Richie. “I’m very light, so some people don’t really know that I’m Black,” she told Complex. “I’ve been in situations where people will say something kind of racist, and I’ll step in and they’ll be like, ‘Oh, well, you’re light.’”

Logic had to constantly remind listeners that his father is Black in his music.  In an interview with Zane Lowe, he stated, “Not to bring it up, because I don’t want to talk about it a lot, because it’s a meme on the internet now. But, like, even my race, I’m so proud to be who I am, and to have all these people try to tell me that I can’t be this… People try to tell me like that, ‘Oh, you shouldn’t be proud or you’re not this or you aren’t that,’ or whatever the hell. I’m just kinda here to say, like, who is anybody else to tell me who I am or what I’ve gone through or what I haven’t gone through? I’ve experienced a lot of really fucking terrible things as a child."

Julia Jones, from the Twilight Saga film series, is mixed and grew up in the Jamaica Plain neighborhood of Boston. “One of the great things about growing up there was that it’s so ethnically diverse, you didn’t really pay attention to race," she stated.  "My dad is part Choctaw, Chickasaw, and African American. I didn’t realize the significance of not being white until I moved to LA.”

The former NBA player, most famous for marrying Kim Kardashian, has a Black father and a white mother. "Well my dad is Black," he stated. "His grandma was white. So he is mixed but way more Black than white obviously. And my mom is white. You know, I don’t know. I love who I am. I love who my parents are. Growing up it was different because a lot of schools I went to people would see my dad and they would be like 'I didn’t know you were Black.' It was kind of a shocker. I love my dad and mom."

Legendary MLB star Derek Jeter, who had a Black father and white mother, has spoken candidly about growing up mixed race. “Since I was very young I’d have so many people staring at me,” Jeter stated. “My parents did a great job of sitting us down and saying, ‘Look you’re gonna get looks, people are going to treat you different, you’re gonna deal with racism, you’re gonna deal with prejudice'… but you learn how to deal with it.”

While diving into her role as Mary, a white-passing Black woman, in Sinners, Hailee delved deeper into her own family history. Her grandfather was Filipino and Black. "It had such an impact on me personally," she told PEOPLE about her experience filming Sinners. "I'm so grateful for the deeply personal connection that each of us have [to the material], mine being with my family history, with my grandfather, who I wish was still here to answer all the questions that I have that this movie raised for me and making this movie raised."

Daniel Sunjata has played characters of different racial backgrounds because of his ambiguous look; however, he is Black. He has a Black biological father and a white biological mother, but was adopted and raised by a white family. "When I was coming out of graduate school, I wasn’t really sure if my ethnic ambiguity [Irish, German, and African American] was going to be a help or a hindrance, but I think that ultimately it has helped me," he told the New York Times. "It’s set me apart from other guys who might be considered leading-man types in the sense that I don’t necessarily look like everybody else. But a lot of it depends on the open-mindedness of the casting director."