Not-so-breaking news: George Obama (the Prez’s half-brother) is getting a book deal. While the book will supposedly be about his struggles with drugs, and his ultimate redemption through community organizing, let’s be honest, the only reason anyone will pay for this thing is sitting up in the White House. But we can’t fault George, after all, he’s just following in a long, long line of families who have ridden their more famous relative’s fame right into the spotlight.
1. The Lohans– The Lohans get special mention for managing to find every human being with the last name Lohan and packing them all onto the Lindsay train. Between the daddy drama, her little sister’s singing career, and her mom’s reality show, we didn’t miss a second of this family’s life — no matter how hard we tried.
2. The Kardashians– This family managed to land a reality series in spite of the fact that none of us had heard of them before it came out. Now we feel like we know way too much, thanks to Joel McHale.
3. The Cyruses– This one takes the Most Confusing award because we don’t actually know who is riding whose coattails here. When she started out, Miley was definitely “Billy Ray’s daughter” but now, we’re pretty sure that he’s “Miley Cyrus’ dad.” Then again, he has a career again thanks to her, so we guess he’s not complaining.
4. The Spears/Federlines– This family takes the combo bonus. It started when Britney married the back-up dancer Kevin Federline, which rapidly imploded into a divorce scandal/child care scandal/Jamie Lynn is preggo scandal. For what it’s worth, Jamie Lynn technically had a show on Nickelodeon (thanks to her sister) before she got pregnant, but no one over the age of 13 was paying attention.
5. The Hendrixes– We decided to go off the beaten path with this one because it made us very sad. Unlike the rest of the people on this list who you’ve heard of, you may be unfamiliar with Jimi Hendrix’s less talented (and infinitely shameless) brother Leon who is probably most famous for being in jail when Jimi died. Leon spent the next few decades as a thief and crack addict, but the real shamefest came when he finally got clean, took up the guitar, and released an album. The first track of which is titled “Jimi and Me”. Oy.