Most people never receive the opportunity to bask in the spotlight, but some can get a glimpse through friends and family relations.
Sarah Barton, freshman international studies major at California Baptist University, is the cousin of Cole and Dylan Sprouse, the twins most well-known for playing Zack and Cody Martin on “The Suite Life of Zack and Cody.”
Barton is five years younger than her second-cousins, but has faint memories of them when she was little.
“We would do holidays sometimes, but it’s like before they were on ‘Suite Life’ when they were still doing smaller stuff,” Barton said. “Up until they really did that and got really busy with ‘Suite Life,’ we would hang out a little
bit more.”
Barton said it did not affect her too much when they were on television when she was young, but as she has grown up, she realized everyone knew who they are.
“We don’t hang out all the time and we don’t see them that much because they’re busy doing TV,” Barton said. “We reconnected five years ago and so we talked then but it was not that huge of a deal to me as it would have been to someone else.”
Emma Olson, senior communication studies major, knows actor Nathan Kress, who played Freddie Benson on the popular Nickelodeon show “iCarly.” Olson knew him through her roommate and has hung out with him a couple of times.
“He’s a pretty cool person so being around him was fun,” Olson said. “The only weird and funny part was how fans would act when they see him. They’d scream and take a bunch of pictures of him. We’d actually had someone ahead of us in one of the lines give us their spot so we didn’t have to be next to this group of young girls who kept screaming and taking an insane amount of pictures.”
Even in a community as small as CBU’s, there is opportunity to have a brush with those that toe the line of fame.
“It’s weird to think of how small the Christian world is here on earth,” Olson said. “I have seen a couple of the re-runs. It is weird watching it now because I’ve met him and hang out with him and I remember watching it when it was on and having no idea that I’d meet him.”
With several students garnishing large social media followings, the number of celebrities connected to CBU are beginning to grow beyond just the relationships with the celebrities on television.
