Celebrities with Fun, Surprising and Extremely Random Pre-Fame Connections

From Supreme Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson's Harvard connection with Matt Damon to Julia Robers

Matt Damon once took an acting class with Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, but that is hardly the wildest thing on this list of celebrities with random connections.

From Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King paying for Julia Roberts' hospital bill the day she was born to Snoop Dogg coaching a young C.J. Stroud before he was the second overall draft pick for the Houston Texans, it seems the universe has a funny way of bringing things full circle.

Below, see some of the celebrities whose paths crossed before they were famous.

Julia Roberts and Martin Luther King Jr.

When it comes to surprising connections, perhaps none are as trippy as this one: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife, Coretta Scott King, paid for the bill the day Julia Roberts was born; her parents, Walter and Betty Roberts, "couldn't pay for the hospital bill."

"My parents had a theater school in Atlanta called the Actors and Writers Workshop, and one day Coretta Scott King called my mother and asked if her kids could be part of the school because they were having a hard time finding a place that would accept her kids," Roberts said the origin of her parents to the Kings during an interview with Gayle King.

"And my mom is like, 'Sure come on over.' And so they just all became friends, and they helped us out of a jam."

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson and Matt Damon

Before she was a Supreme Court Justice, Ketanji Brown Jackson ventured into the dramatic arts and had a brief run-in with Matt Damon.

During an interview with CBS Sunday Morning on Sept. 1, Brown Jackson — who attended Harvard at the same time as the Good Will Hunting actor — confirmed that they ran some lines together at one point, as part of rehearsals for a production of Waiting for Godot.

“He’s not going to remember this, of course,” she said. “The reason why I remember it is because he was already kind of well-known around campus and off campus, so it was kind of exciting to be his scene partner for a particular class."

“At the end, the professor said, ‘Ketanji, you were very good. Matt, we’ll talk,’” she told CBS’ Norah O'Donnell. “I was like, ‘Oh my God, I was better than Matt Damon in a scene.’”

Denzel Washington and Chadwick Boseman

While Chadwick Boseman was still studying at Howard University, he had the opportunity to participate in a summer exchange program at the British American Drama Academy at Oxford but unfortunately didn't have the money to attend at the time.

One of his teachers at the time happened to be Phylicia Rashad and so she tapped some of her famous friends to help sponsor Boseman and his classmates. Boseman's benefactor wound up being none other than Denzel Washington.

"The funny thing is, he showed up at the New York premiere of Black Panther and I had never told anyone about that," Boseman explained while on the Graham Norton Show.

"He comes in the back and he thinks he's sneaking in ... and I'm like, 'It's great to meet you. Big fan of your work. Just wanted to tell you thank you for paying for me to go Oxford,'" Boseman explained before revealing he got a very Denzel answer in return.

"He was like, 'Oh, you owe me money!'"

Rebel Wilson and Nicole Kidman

Like Boseman, Rebel Wilson also got a leg up from a fellow countrywoman when she was studying to become an actor.

Back in 2015, the Pitch Perfect star told HuffPostUK that she was one of 16 students who got the chance to come and study in the U.S., thanks to a scholarship funded by Nicole Kidman.

“We’ve spoke about it since,” Wilson told the outlet. “I really did thank her, and I donated the money back to the college two years ago, so they can use it for all their current projects and new actors.”

Omari Hardwick and Denzel Washington

Omari Hardwick is so close to Denzel Washington and his wife Pauletta, he considers them his second set of parents.

While appearing on Live with Kelly and Ryan in 2022, Hardwick opened up about how he came to know the Washingtons.

"I was trying to make ends meet at one point and I was substitute teaching and coaching at Campbell Hall and there were two kids who really took to me and I took to them as well. One was Navarone [Garibaldi], Priscilla Presley's son, and the other was a one John David Washington," he explained, revealing that he didn't realize who John David's parents were at the time.

"One day Pauletta picked him up and she kind of picked me up too," he admitted. "I was no longer as homeless as I prior was when I was teaching and coaching them. I absolutely was allowed to sort of figure [out] my 20s, on into my 30s in that home. They both have been very important to me."

Michael B. Jordan and Chadwick Boseman

Michael B. Jordan and Chadwick Boseman played polar opposites in Black Panther, but years prior, the two buddies played the same role on All My Children.

In 2003, Boseman, then 26, was hired to play the role of Reggie Porter on the ABC soap opera, but was allegedly fired after speaking to producers about his concerns that the character, a teen gang member, was a racial stereotype.

“When I got it, I was like, ‘This is not part of my manifesto. This is not part of what I want to do,'" Boseman said in the 2019 issue ofTheWrap’s Oscar magazine. "I had to voice my opinions and put my stamp on it,” Boseman he later added.

He admitted that though the producers took “some” of his suggestions, they also fired him, and replaced him with Jordan, who was 16 at the time.

“It’s wild to hear you say that,” Jordan said in the same interview. “I’m younger than Chad, and I was coming into All My Children fresh off The Wire — wide open, still learning. I was playing this role not knowing that a lot of the things I was going through were because of what he’d already done for me.”

Boseman sadly died of colon cancer on Aug. 28, 2020. He was 43.

Susan Lucci and Andy Cohen

Andy Cohen and Susan Lucci's decades-long friendship started with a simple letter the Watch What Happens Live host wrote to the soap legend back in the '80s. Cohen reflected on their friendship after having met up with Lucci for a lunch date in Oct. 2023.

“How it started…. how it’s going!” he captioned a post on Instagram that featured a side-by-side throwback photo of their first meeting and their fall reunion. “In 1988 I wrote Susan Lucci a fan letter begging (imploring!) to let me interview her for my school newspaper. She not only said yes, she took me to lunch.”

“We’ve run into each other over the years and had a wonderful reunion today (and I finally got to return the favor of picking up the tab!) #EricaKaneForever,” Cohen concluded. 

Dolly Parton and Keanu Reeves

Dolly Parton has known Keanu Reeves since he was a wee tot. The actor's mother, Patricia Taylor, was a costume designer and one of her clients was Parton.

“She did a lot of sewing for me, she did a lot of my clothes,” Parton revealed while on The Drew Barrymore Show last November.

“But I remember Keanu when he was just little," she continued. "And she would bring him over to my house when we were fitting or when I would go to the shop where she worked.”

Years later, Parton told Barrymore, Reeves came to see her when she was “doing a show somewhere."

“He said, ‘Do you remember me? I'm the little boy that used to sit at your feet when my mom was [working],” she recalled. “Of course, I knew he had become a star but it didn’t connect to me that that was who that was.”

Barrymore then revealed to the "Jolene" singer Reeves’ once admitted he wore her Playboy Bunny costume.

“Did he? Aw, that’s sweet,” Parton said. “He’s great. He’s the sweetest guy.”

Snoop Dogg and C.J. Stroud

Long before he was one of the hottest quarterbacks in the NFL, C.J. Stroud honed his football skills as part of the Snoop Youth Football League, the nonprofit organization that Snoop Dogg founded in 2005 to give inner-city kids the chance to play football.

"I played for his league," Stroud told PEOPLE earlier this year. "He was one of the coaches that was running the league and he was part of the team that I was on."

"I was probably like sixth, seventh, eighth grade — around middle school," Stroud explained.

Stroud continued: "He used to invite us to his house and things like that. That goes a long way. It just seemed like it is more than where you come from. There's a lot more to life and he showed us that... So definitely really appreciative and grateful for Coach Snoop and everything that he's done."

He added, "I'm still in contact with him and he's been a blessing on my life for sure."

For his part, Snoop said he feels like a "proud father" to the NFL star.

"He’s so positive,” the rap legend said of Stroud. “That’s what I like about him is that he’s pushing a different narrative than a lot of these other guys in the league. He’s pushing a real narrative of spirit love and just being a voice of positivity.”

Elizabeth Taylor and David Schwimmer

David Schwimmer's family jewelry collection has one very cool piece in it — a necklace Elizabeth Taylor gifted to his mom.

“She wanted to be an actress, but her father kind of forbid it because of all the promiscuity and things," Schwimmer said of his mom, high-powered entertainment attorney Arlene Coleman-Schwimmer, while on the Origins with Cush Jumbo podcast.

"So she became a lawyer ... Yeah. She ended up representing Elizabeth Taylor, her childhood idol Elizabeth Taylor,” Schwimmer said. “Because she did such a good job for [her], Elizabeth gave her one of her own personal necklaces as a kind of bonus gift to my mom."