Judge Joe Brown shocks Patrick Bet-David by revealing that Barack Obama and Brad Pirtt are cousins.

Joseph Brown Jr., known professionally as Judge Joe Brown, is an American former lawyer and television personality.

He is a former Shelby County, Tennessee Criminal Court judge and a former arbiter of the arbitration-based reality court show Judge Joe Brown.

Ninth cousins Obama and Pitt: that family tree in full

When Mr Pitt went to Washington last week the official line was that Brad was there to talk to Obama about the Hollywood star’s plan to help rebuild New Orleans.

All very worthy. But who were they trying to kid? It was obvious to any rightwing conspiracy theorist that the meeting was all part of a plot to forward the interests of Obama’s family. Surely you haven’t forgotten? Obama and Pitt are cousins.

Ninth cousins to be precise. On the campaign trail last year it emerged that the two share a common ancestor.

The link is Edwin Hickman, who died in Virginia in 1769. Obama is a direct descendant of Hickman’s son James through the president’s white Kansas-born mother, Ann Dunham Sutoro.

Hickman’s other son, Edwin Jr, James’s brother, is head of the line leading to William Bradley Pitt, known these days as Brad.

We don’t know much about Hickman, but what there is points more towards Obama’s life of public service than Pitt’s calling as an entertainer. Hickman was sheriff of the wonderfully named Spotsylvania region of Virginia, and owned a little land. A big fish in a tiny pond, he could not have dreamed of his double whammy 10 generations later.

Christopher Child, a genealogist at the New England Historic Genealogical Society, who did much of the work on Obama’s family tree, finds these coincidences interesting, though not surprising. “If people have ancestors in a common part of the country they will be more likely to find connections – in Obama and Pitt’s case the South.”

So are the similarities evident? Not at, erm, face value. Pitt’s jaw is broad, Obama’s sharp. But they share a nose and an irresistible smile. The charm is in the genes.