Rod Stewart Finally Weighs In on Yungblud’s “Grandfather” Story With the Perfect Response

For years, Yungblud has carried a curious piece of family folklore: a childhood belief that British rock legend Rod Stewart was his grandfather. The eccentric tale, passed down from his grandmother, became something of a personal mythos for the musician. Now, in a full-circle twist, the story has finally reached Stewart himself and the veteran rocker’s response was as dry-witted as one might expect.

During a recent appearance on The Capital Evening Show with Jimmy Hill, Yungblud (born Dominic Harrison) revisited the story he’s told in interviews since his breakout years. “My nana told me when I was little that Rod Stewart was my granddad,” he recalled, laughing. “I believed her completely.”

His grandmother, who raised Yungblud’s mother as a single parent, apparently spun the tale to fill in the gaps of family history. The singer grew up in Doncaster, South Yorkshire, with a deep love for rock ’n’ roll and for years, he thought it was in his blood. “I’d go around thinking I had this rock-royalty lineage,” he said. “I’d be like, ‘Of course I love guitars, I’m Rod Stewart’s grandson!’”

The illusion came crashing down when Yungblud was around nine. “I was in a shop with my nan, and there was a Rod Stewart CD by the counter,” he said. “I picked it up, looked at it and asked, ‘Nan, when’s granddad coming home?’”

He laughed while retelling the story but admitted the moment was mortifying. “Everyone at the checkout started laughing. They all realized my nan had been caught lying. That was the day I found out Rod Stewart was not, in fact, my granddad.”

In a plot twist worthy of a British sitcom, Stewart eventually heard about the story and decided to play along. “He actually DM’d me on Instagram,” Yungblud revealed. “He just wrote, ‘All right, me wee grandson.’” Yungblud couldn’t contain his laughter recalling the message. “I was like, ‘Rod Stewart, man, he’s got the banter!’” he said. “It was mad. Like, I made this whole thing up in my head, and then one day the real Rod Stewart’s messaging me.”

It’s unclear exactly when Stewart learned of the story, but Yungblud first mentioned the myth in a 2019 Rolling Stone profile.

While Yungblud’s supposed rock-star bloodline was fiction, his career has hardly suffered for it. The 27-year-old singer has become one of the U.K.’s most distinctive modern rock exports, fusing punk attitude, glam flair, and pop accessibility. His latest album, Idols, arrived in June and has anchored a massive European tour this fall.

After wrapping the current run, Yungblud will cross the Atlantic for a handful of North American shows in late November before launching a full-scale U.S. tour next spring. The 2026 leg kicks off May 1 in Sterling Heights, Michigan, and runs through June 13 in Atlanta.

For Yungblud, whose work often wrestles with identity, rebellion, and belonging, the Rod Stewart story feels emblematic, a childhood fantasy turned into affectionate rock folklore. “It’s one of those things that only makes sense when you grow up in a family that uses humor to survive,” he once said. “I think my nan thought she was giving me magic and in a way, she did.”

Today, that harmless lie lives on as a family joke, one now shared between two generations of British rockers. Whether or not Yungblud ever takes a DNA test, he says he’s in no rush to break the spell completely. “I’m not checking,” he joked. “I’ll just let the mystery live on.”