These celebrities lost fortunes when they got divorced
Born to an aristocratic family, Tolstoy was actually a count who descended from statesman and diplomat Pyotr Andreyevich Tolstoy.
Regarded as one of the greatest and most influential authors of all time, the Russian writer's most notable works include the novels 'War and Peace' (1869) and 'Anna Karenina' (1878).
Augustus, also known as Octavian, was appointed by his maternal great-uncle and adopted father, Julius Caesar (pictured), as the first Roman emperor.
Ancient Rome had its own nepo baby, Emperor Augustus, who ruled from 27 BCE until his death in 14 CE.
President Benjamin Harrison held the office from 1889 to 1893. He was the son of a congressman, and also the grandson of a president.
His grandfather was William Henry Harrison (pictured), who died just 31 days after his inauguration as president in 1841. Benjamin Harrison was also the great-grandson of Benjamin Harrison V, who signed the Declaration of Independence.
His mother, Agariste, was a member of the influential and wealthy Alcmaeonid family. And his father was a wealthy politician named Xanthippus.
His father, Prescott Bush (pictured), was a Republican senator for Connecticut from 1952 to 1963. And Prescott’s father, Samuel Prescott Bush, was a wealthy industrialist who served on the federal government's War Industries Board during World War I.
Sources: (Mental Floss) (Business Insider)
See also: Celebrities whose ancestors made history
In 1935, Irène Joliot-Curie and her husband, Frédéric Joliot, won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for their work in synthesizing new radioactive elements.
Irène’s mother, Marie Curie, had won the same prize in 1911 for also working with radioactive elements. Eight years before that, Marie and her husband (Irène’s father) Pierre had won the prize in physics for studying radiation.
The father of former president George W. Bush, President George H.W. Bush wasn't the patriarch of the Bush political dynasty as many believe.
Nepotism can be found in the foundations of Athenian politics in ancient Greece. Statesman Pericles was known to have descended from well-known political families.
Her father was philosopher and literary critic Leslie Stephen. He was even knighted in 1902 for his contributions to the field of literature.
Considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors, English writer Virginia Woolf came from an affluent household.
Shelley's father was political philosopher William Godwin, and her mother was philosopher and women's rights advocate Mary Wollstonecraft.
When you hear the name Ludwig van Beethoven, you probably don't ask, "Which one?" But the composer’s grandfather was also named Ludwig van Beethoven, and he, too, was a musician.
Mary Shelley, author of 'Frankenstein' (1818), was the daughter of a philosophy power couple.
Ludwig the grandfather (pictured) was born in the region of Flanders in Belgium, and made his debut as a church choir singer at age five. He learned to play the organ and played in various churches as a choir director before moving to Bonn in present-day Germany. There, he became the court's official music director in 1761.
His paternal grandfather, Erasmus Darwin (pictured), was a poet, physician, botanist, and naturalist, who wrote a theory of evolution in his 1794 book 'Zoonomia; Or, the Laws of Organic Life.'
One of several father-son presidential pairs would be John Adams and his son, John Quincy Adams (pictured).
John Adams (pictured) was the second president of the United States, from 1797 to 1801. John Quincy Adams was the sixth president, from 1825 to 1829.
The famed French film director made more than 40 films from the silent era to the end of the 1960s. His films 'La Grande Illusion' (1937) and 'The Rules of the Game' (1939) are often cited by critics as among the greatest films ever made.
Known for his contributions to evolutionary biology, Charles Darwin wasn't the first science genius in the Darwin family.
Renoir was the son of impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir (pictured to the right). In 1924, Jean financed his first movie, 'Une Vie sans joie,' by selling some paintings by his father, who had died five years prior.
Chaplin got his stage start at age nine, thanks to his parents, comic performers Charles Chaplin Sr. and Hannah Chaplin (stage name Lily Harley).
Oscar Wilde's mother was Jane Francesca Agnes Elgee, a poet who wrote for the Irish nationalist newspaper The Nation under the pseudonym Speranza, which means "hope" in Italian.
A household name, you probably assumed Charlie Chaplin started his own chain of nepo babies. His children include actress Geraldine Chaplin, who's the mother of Oona Chaplin, known for playing Lady Talisa in 'Game of Thrones.' But Chaplin's actually a nepo baby himself.
Oscar's father was William Wilde, Ireland's most famous ophthalmic surgeon. He also edited a scientific journal and published some of his own writings.
Short for nepotism baby, nepo baby is a term mostly used to describe a famous entertainer descended from another famous entertainer or affluent family. Like Maya Hawke, for instance, whose parents are Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman. Or Liza Minnelli, whose parents were Judy Garland and Vincente Minnelli. However, nepo babies have been around for centuries, far beyond Hollywood. The term actually derives from the Latin root nepos, meaning nephew, originating from popes granting their nephews high-ranking positions.
Intrigued? Check out the following gallery for historical figures you didn't know were nepo babies.
Historical figures who were nepo babies
Nepotism was even more pervasive in the past than it is now!
CELEBRITY History
Short for nepotism baby, nepo baby is a term mostly used to describe a famous entertainer descended from another famous entertainer or affluent family. Like Maya Hawke, for instance, whose parents are Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman. Or Liza Minnelli, whose parents were Judy Garland and Vincente Minnelli. However, nepo babies have been around for centuries, far beyond Hollywood. The term actually derives from the Latin root nepos, meaning nephew, originating from popes granting their nephews high-ranking positions.
Intrigued? Check out the following gallery for historical figures you didn't know were nepo babies.