Ron Howard Reveals His Iconic TV Co-Star Was His Real-Life Cousin

Ron Howard made a surprising reveal to fans. The Emmy-winning actor turned Oscar-winning screenwriter, movie producer and director revealed that he is related to Don Knotts, his childhood co-star on ‘The Andy Griffith Show.”

Howard, 70, dropped the surprise news via an Instagram post in February 2025. The photo showed him posing with Griffith and Knotts when they visited him on a movie set in the late 1990s. “A fun photo of the day in ‘97 when #AndyGriffith and #DonKnotts surprised me with a visit to the set of #Ransom in #Queens. It was recently confirmed that Don and I were actually distant cousins!”

It is unclear how and when Howard found out about his real-life connection to his childhood co-star. But nearly a year ago, The Andy Griffith Show Facts and Trivia YouTube account teased the connection, citing IMDb as a source.

Knotts’ bio on the Hollywood Walk of Fame website states that he and Howard are sixth cousins. Knotts died in 2006 at age 81.

Ron Howard Loved Working With Don Knotts on ‘The Andy Griffith Show’

Howard was only five years old when he first appeared as Opie Taylor on “The Andy Griffith Show.” Knotts played Deputy Sherriff Barney Fife on the sitcom, which aired on CBS from 1960 to 1968.

In a 2006 interview on “Larry King Live,” Howard said he had “such great memories” of working with Knotts. “Don was, you know, an amazing guy in that — and I’ve worked with a lot of very, very funny people over the years,” Howard said. “He wasn’t like his character at all. Even as a kid, you know, I could see that he was a really great comic actor who knew how to create this character and knew how to be very funny but, you know, he wasn’t Barney Fife. He was a very calm, very kind, very relaxed, very creative guy.”

Howard also recalled playing catch with Knotts in a field behind the studio. “There’s a great picture, in fact, of Don and I out there playing catch in Forty Acres that I have and in between set-ups when I got interested in baseball, you know. And Don would throw the ball around with me once in a while. It was, you know, it was a lot of fun,” he said.

Don Knotts Once Praised Ron Howard’s Family

While Knotts died without knowing that Howard was his real-life relative, he always admired the child actor. In an interview with Archive of American Television, he described Howard as “a nice little boy” and a “natural actor,”

According to MeTV, in his 1999 memoir, “Barney Fife, and Other Characters I Have Played,” Knotts praised Howard’s parents for how they handled their son’s stardom at such a young age.

“Ron’s father Rance, also an actor, helped Ron memorize his lines,” Knotts wrote. “Ron’s folks were wonderful parents. They, of course, brought Ron to the set and their handling of Ron could not have been better.”

“Ron was the best-behaved child actor I ever worked with,” Knotts added. “I can’t remember ever seeing him get out of line. When he was working, he was right there, diligent and concentrated. When he wasn’t on camera, you didn’t even know he was around.”