Larry David And Bernie Sanders Are Actually Related, And No This Isn’t A Rejected ‘SNL’ Sketch

One of the greatest, most brilliant ideas to come out of Saturday Night Live‘s 2015-2016 season was casting Larry David to play Bernie Sanders. The famously cantankerous Curb Your Enthusiasm creator and star was seemingly born to play the irate senator from Vermont, as evidenced by multiple appearances. According to his recent appearance at the Television Critics Association’s 2017 Summer Press Tour, however, David’s connection to Sanders is far deeper than the creative judgment of Lorne Michaels. That’s because the two men are actually related.

According to Variety, David recalled the former Democratic presidential candidate telling him about their familial connection, which he discovered while taping an episode of the PBS series Finding Your Roots. Hosted by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., the show features “celebrities [learning] about the unknown branches of their family trees.” David told the TCA crowd he “was very happy about that,” as he “thought there must have been some connection” between he and Sanders when they first met.

The Seinfeld creator wouldn’t tell reporters precisely how he and the senator were related, though whether his reluctance was based on privacy or ignorance remains to be seen. After all, as Variety notes, David did relent and say Sanders was “a third cousin or something.”