In a new episode of Finding Your Roots, LL Cool J discovers that his grandmother is not actually biologically related to him.
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LL Cool J, born James Smith, says in the clip that his mother, Ondrea Smith, had always been suspicious of her biological relation to her mother, Ellen Hightower.
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So, after genetic testing was done by the show Finding Your Roots on PBS, Smith discovered that she had been right all along: she did not have a biological relation to Hightower.
But when LL Cool J heard the news, he didn’t take it to mean he’d lost a grandmother. “I mean it’s sad, but at the same time it’s… she was my grandmother. Biologically she wasn’t but spiritually she absolutely will always be,” he said philosophically.