‘The View’ Co-Host Breaks Down in Tears Learning She’s Related to 2 US Presidents

The View‘s Sara Haines got some emotional news Thursday as she learned she was related to not just one, but two U.S. presidents.

Haines broke down in tears during a sit-down with Finding Your Roots host Henry Louis Gates Jr. on Thursday’s episode of the ABC talk show as he walked her through her previously unknown lineage.

Gates Jr. originally gave The View panel a quick rundown on another of Haines’ ancestors, revealing that he was a German man in the 1700s who abandoned the woman he got pregnant, before the show played a clip from Haines’ episode of Finding Your Roots that revealed a much more notable aspect of her descent.

Showing Haines a portrait of President John Adams, Gates Jr. asked Haines, “Do you know who that is?” to which she responded, “He looks like a lot of people in my history book.”

Gates Jr. then revealed that the portrait was actually of the second United States president, telling Haines, “He is your third cousin, nine times removed!”

Haines was quickly overcome with emotion, laughing before breaking down into tears with her head in her hands. “Oh my God. I’m related to a president!” Haines said through tears, adding, “And he was a good one!”

Back on The View, Gates Jr. explained that because of Haines’ relation to Adams, she is “related not to one president, but to two presidents,” as Adams’ son, John Quincy Adams, was the sixth U.S. president.

Haines’ relationship to the Adams family comes via her grandfather, whose mother was related to Henry Adams, the journalist’s 11th great-grandfather, who settled in Massachusetts after coming over to the U.S. from England.

“We only had one other guest in the history of the series who was related to a president, unhappily so, and that was Michael Moore, who was related to Herbert Hoover,” Gates Jr. told Haines. “You are our first guest happily related to two United States presidents!”

The liberal filmmaker was memorably revealed to have been a descendant of President Herbert Hoover, revealing his feelings about his relation to the Republican leader on Twitter back in February 2019.

“Wow. That was something. The president who is my cousin? HERBERT HOOVER!” he wrote at the time. “Apologies to all who suffered during the Great Depression. I had nothing to do with it.”

Moore later told PBS he was disappointed in his presidential tie, joking, “When he told me I was related to one of the 45 presidents, I was like thinking, oh, you know, Kennedy or hey, maybe Obama.”

Finding Your Roots airs Tuesdays on PBS.