Race politics can be complicated and bi-racial stars often find themselves on one side of the Hollywood divide. Unsurprisingly, for the stars in this list that side tends to be the white one, with most people not even realizing these actors, actresses, and public personas are in fact mixed — and for all intents and purposes, black.
Wentworth Miller
The “Prison Break” star has a black father and a white mother, and ironically got his start as an actor in the movie “The Human Stain,” where he played a black man passing for white. But since then, he’s played characters that the audience assumes are white.
Meghan Markle
“Suits” actress Meghan Markle has an African-American mother and a white father.
Rashida Jones
Take a poll and most “Parks and Recreation” fans won’t know that Rashida Jones is the daughter of music mogul Quincy Jones and actress Peggy Lipton.
Maya Rudolph
Maya Rudolph has played a host of racially ambiguous characters. But she’s actually Minnie Ripperton’s daughter with music composer Richard Rudolph.
Cash Warren
Producer Cash Warren is most famous for being Jessica Alba’s husband. They don’t look like an interracial couple at first glance. But Cash Warren is actually the son of Hill Street Blues actor Michael Warren.
Jennifer Beals
The “Flashdance” star has been acting for decades. But even after her role in “Devil in a Blue Dress,” many of her fans don’t know she’s biracial.

19th CDGA (Costume Designers Guild Awards) held at the Beverly Hilton Hotel – Arrivals
Featuring: Troian Bellisario
Where: Los Angeles, California, United States
When: 21 Feb 2017
Credit: FayesVision/WENN.com
Troian Bellisario
Troian Bellisario plays a WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) on “Pretty Little Liars,” but her mother is actually African-American actress and TV producer Deborah Pratt.
It wasn’t until news correspondent Soledad O’Brien appeared on CNN’s “Black in America” that the world realized that she was black. Her father is Afro-Cuban and her mother is Australian.
Carol Channing
The famous Broadway performer started her career in the 40s and 50s as a white actress. She didn’t reveal to the world that her father was black until 2002, when she was around 80 years old.
Michael Fosberg
Action movie actor Michael Fosberg didn’t know that he was passing when he played white characters. He was 32 and well into his career before his mother revealed to him that the man he knew as his father wasn’t and that his real dad was a black man.
Vin Diesel
Vin Diesel says that he identifies as a “person of color,” but most people don’t know that his mother is white and his father is black.
Darnell Martin
When Darnell Martin produced “I Like It Like That” in 1994, she was the first black woman to write and direct a film for a major Hollywood studio. Only very few people know that Darnell’s father was black so the milestone wasn’t properly celebrated.
Gabrielle Reece
The volleyball star’s father is Trinidadian. He was killed in a plane crash when Gabrielle was just five years old.
Daniel Sunjata
The “Rescue Me” star is often typcast as a Lation actor, but he’s actually half black and half white.
Dwayne Jonson
Most people are aware that Dwayne is “ambiguously ethnic”. But not everyone knows that he’s actually half black and half Samoan.