Is Pope Leo XIV related to Madonna and Justin Bieber? Robert Francis Prevost's reported ancestry explored
Last week, on June 11, The NY Times published an article tracing the ancestry of Pope Leo XIV - born Robert Francis Prevost.
According to the media outlet, Prevost, who is the first American Pope, has a common Canadian ancestor with music celebrities - including Justin Bieber and Madonna - from six generations ago, making them distant relatives.
The NY Times' report read,
"Through one Canadian ancestor, Louis Boucher de Grandpre, who was born in Trois-Rivières, Quebec, the pope is related to numerous Canadian-derived distant cousins, including Pierre and Justin Trudeau, Angelina Jolie, Hillary Clinton, Justin Bieber, Jack Kerouac, and Madonna."
Pope Leo XIV's distant link to Madonna presents an irony, as Billboard reported, since the Burning Up singer has received criticism from the previous Popes of the Vatican City on multiple occasions.
Madonna first faced criticism in 1989 for her Like a Prayer music video, which showed her kissing a Black saint in a dream sequence.
In 2015, during a concert in Philadelphia, she jokingly dedicated La Vie en Rose to Pope Francis, saying he might have been "stalking" her since they were both in New York around the same time, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
She added,
"Either he's a copycat or he's secretly in love with me."
The Material Girl singer also staged a mock crucifixion during her 2006 Confessions tour, which took place merely miles away from the Vatican City.
In 2021, the Physical Attraction singer mentioned the Pope in a tweet, asking him to "meet up one day to discuss some important matters". She also claimed in her tweet that she had been ex communicated three times, calling it "unfair".
Justin Bieber, on the other hand, is openly religious and revealed to fans that he was a member of the Churchome community in 2021.
Pope Leo XIV's maternal ancestry reportedly traces back as far as the 1500s
Besides his link to music celebrities, the NY Times article also made other surprising revelations about Pope Leo XIV's ancestry. Per the article, the Pope's ancestry went as far back as the 1500s on his mother's side, extending all the way back to Spain.
Four of the Pope's 11th great-grandfathers were listed as "gentlemen" in Isla - a small town located in northern Spain (sourced from a 1573 census).
Further down the line, four generations of the ancestors on Pope Leo XIV's mother's side were born in Havana, Cuba.
Meanwhile, the Pope's lineage on his father's side is traced back to Italy, with five generations of his ancestors born in Sicily, including his grandfather, Salvatore Giovanni Gaetano Riggitano Alito.
Per the report, Salvatore likely immigrated to the US in 1905. While he was also on the path to becoming a priest, Salvatore was unable to take his vows and ended up getting married instead.
Surprisingly, the Pope's father, Louis Marius Prevost, was born to Salvatore in an extramarital affair with a French woman, Suzanne Louis Marie Fontaine, and took up his grandmother's maiden name "Prevost".
Of all the ancestors of Pope Leo XIV identified so far, the majority are traced back to France, with the remaining belonging to Italy and Spain.
