DNA test proves that Florida man is not William Shatner’s son
Mystery solved: Set phasers to stun. It took 36 years, but a Florida man who relentlessly insisted he was William’s Shatner’s son just realized he isn’t, the Tampa Bay Times reports.
Peter Sloan, who legally changed his last name to Shatner last year, can thank
Ancestry.com for helping to clear up the matter.
The 63-year-old
Clearwater man, who was adopted as an infant, got it into his head that the “Star
Trek” star was his dad because his biological mother told him she had a fling with the actor at the time of his conception, and that it was highly possible.
But the mother, late Canadian actress Kathy Burt, had another affair at the same time as well, with a man named “Chick.” The DNA oral swab recently proved that the fellow Canadian was indeed the real father. The man, whose real name was Benjamin Freedman, died in 2001. Chick’s daughter finally decided to help Sloan in October by taking the Ancestry test; the results recently came back that they are related, the Times reports.
As for William Shatner, the TV star wasn’t pleased having to constantly fight off Sloan over the years. The 89-year-old who puts in his Twitter bio that he is a “father to three girls,” adamantly denied the allegations. But Sloan went so far as to sue the Priceline pitchman for $170 million in a 2016 defamation case for publicly denying the paternity.
Two years later, Judge James Whittemore of U.S District Court, Middle District of Florida in Tampa permanently dismissed the case.
It’s unclear whether Sloan, an insurance salesman, will legally change his name back due to the revelation.