"I am Gerard Way, musician, artist, creator, and cousin of Joe Rogan" is how the My Chemical Romance singer introduced himself for a 2014 Reddit AMA. And yet, amazingly, no one asked the musician about the connection in the ensuing Q&A. Fast-forward five years to when podcaster/comedian Joe Rogan finally shed a bit more light on the kinship — he and Way share a female relative, although they didn't grow up together.
We have "Clerks" director Kevin Smith to thank for this revelation, as he asked Rogan about his famous cousin during a 2019 episode of Rogan's podcast, "The Joe Rogan Experience." "I gotta ask a question on behalf of someone else," Smith said. "Your grandmother named Josie — Gerard Way, lead singer of My Chemical Romance..." Smith then relayed the info that Rogan is Way's cousin, "because [Way's] Aunt Josie was [Rogan's] grandmother." Rogan acknowledged, "Yeah, we're related. ... I don't know him, but we're cousins."
The confirmation kind of made the internet go wild, which included The Cut, who conducted an informal investigation into exactly how Rogan and Way are related. The big question on the blog's mind, however, was whether Rogan's grandmother is the woman who inspired My Chemical Romance's "Helena." Unfortunately, that answer remains a mystery.
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