Is it really that bad to marry my cousin?

On November 30th, TED posted a video to YouTube of British data journalist Mona Chalabi talking about the history of cousin marriage:

I can’t stop thinking about my cousin since our drunken kiss

On November 17th, The Sun had an advice column about a birthday party that led to a drunken kiss between cousins:

My cousin, 32, was being particularly tactile – hugging me and holding my hand a lot.

We’ve always been close – we have mutual friends from school – but I thought it was because she was drunk.

As I went to say goodbye at the end of the night, she dragged me into one of the bedrooms. Next thing I knew, we were kissing.

Actress had a sex scene with her cousin

On November 15th, Vulture (owned by New York magazine) had an article about Mira Sorvino and her cousin Rick Pasqualone:

“He and I did a short film together. It was my first short film, called The Dutch Master,” Sorvino recalled with a laugh. “It got nominated for an Oscar. We actually played fiancés and we had a sex scene, which was very weird, as he’s my cousin. He’s a very nice guy. A handsome guy.”

I was unable to confirm if Mira and Rick are first cousins.  I could not find the parents of Rick Pasqualone, but a New York Times article about his marriage to Denise Fennell states that his family is from Abruzzo, an Italian region east of Rome.  Mira's paternal grandmother was from Molise which split off from Abruzzo in 1963.

Romanichal gypsy cousins marry in North Carolina

On March 18, 2021 The Sun had an article called "I’m a proud traveller & I’m marrying my cousin".

MOST girls dream of their wedding dress from a very young age, but not many can say theirs is encrusted with 80,000 rhinestones.

That's the case for Annie, 27, who is set to marry her first cousin Josh - which is legal in the American state of North Carolina.

Annie hopes for the biggest, blingiest gown in gypsy wedding history, inspired by Winter Wonderland.

The bride-to-be and her cousin Josh are both Romanichal gypsies, and share the same grandfather - and according to Josh, they "just clicked straight away."

There is no mention of the grandmother or Josh's parents; it's possible that they are only half-cousins.

In 2012 the couple appeared in an episode of My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding called "Kissing Cousins".

In 2017, tlc uk posted a video to YouTube about the couple called "Incestuous Wedding" and it has over 5 million views and 35,000 likes.