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Who are Rey's parents, and why did the answer change between films?Fiction

In-universe lore. Claims are judged against the fiction's own canon, not the real world.

Across the sequel trilogy Rey's origin flips from The Last Jedi's blunt "your parents were nobodies" to The Rise of Skywalker's reveal that she is the granddaughter of Emperor Palpatine, and current Star Wars canon then works to reconcile the two. This ledger separates what each film actually states about Rey's parentage from the retcon debate, the tie-in details that fill the gap, and the questions canon leaves open.

6 established, 3 disputed, 1 debunked, 2 unresolved. We do not pick an answer; the evidence places each claim. How we decide

30 citations from 2 independent sources - 28 echo the same voices and count once. Graded B2-D2.

Added 4 Jul 2026 - updated 9 Jul 2026 - canon current as of 9 Jul 2026

What the four states mean
  • Establishedsupported, uncontested
  • Disputedcredible sources disagree
  • Debunkedrefuted by the evidence
  • Unresolvedno settled answer

Established 6supported, uncontested

  • In The Last Jedi (2017), during the throne room confrontation aboard the Supremacy, Kylo Ren tells Rey her parents were nobody: filthy junk traders who sold her off for drinking money and lie dead in a pauper's grave in the Jakku desert, insisting she comes from nothing.▰▰▱▱▱ likely2 points
    Supports
  • The Rise of Skywalker (2019) reverses that answer: on the Steadfast, Kylo Ren tells Rey she is Sidious' granddaughter, that her father was the son of the Emperor, and that she and Ren, grandson of Vader, are a dyad in the Force, declaring plainly that she is a Palpatine.▰▰▱▱▱ likely2 points
    Supports
  • The Rise of Skywalker confirms the parentage from Palpatine's own mouth: reaching Exegol, Rey is greeted by the resurrected Sidious, who says he has been waiting for the return of his grandchild, calls the Sith throne her birthright, and offers to make her Empress, wanting her to strike him down so the Sith spirits within him will pass into her.▰▰▱▱▱ likely2 points
    Supports
  • The film ends by having Rey choose the Skywalker name over the Palpatine bloodline: after defeating Sidious she travels to the Lars homestead on Tatooine, buries the Skywalker lightsabers, and when a local asks her name she answers "Rey Skywalker" as the Force spirits of Luke and Leia look on, so she carries no Skywalker blood and takes the name only by choice and chosen family, a capstone to the saga's Skywalker versus Sith arc examined in the sibling topic starwars-balance-to-the-force.▰▰▱▱▱ likely2 points
    Supports
  • The Rise of Skywalker offers an in-universe reconciliation for the earlier nobody line: Rey's father was a son of the Emperor who wanted nothing to do with that legacy, and he and his wife hid Rey on Jakku as ordinary junk traders to keep her from Sidious, with Kylo Ren stating they sold her only to protect her.▰▰▱▱▱ likely2 points
    Supports
  • Supplementary canon fills in the names and mechanics the films leave out: Rey was born in 15 ABY, the daughter of Dathan and Miramir, and her father Dathan was a bioengineered strandcast cloned from Darth Sidious' genetic template, an ordinary Force-blind human produced by the same Sith Eternal strand-casting program that also created Supreme Leader Snoke (see the sibling topic starwars-snoke-true-nature), while Rey herself was born strong in the Force as a natural offspring of the Palpatine bloodline.▰▰▱▱▱ likely3 points
    Supports

Disputed 3credible sources disagree

  • The change of direction is also disputed as production history rather than settled canon: The Last Jedi, written and directed by Rian Johnson, pushed the nobody parentage, and The Rise of Skywalker, directed by J.J. Abrams, made Rey a Palpatine only after what Wookieepedia calls a creative back-and-forth before it was settled, so the parentage is partly a Word of God decision layered onto the finished films, with Ridley noting Abrams himself had also believed she is of no one.▰▰▰▱▱ likely3 points
    Supports
  • Whether the two films are a genuine contradiction or a reconcilable half-truth is disputed: many commentators call the shift a retcon, while defenders note that in-universe Kylo told Rey what he believed to be the truth drawn from her own suppressed memories, that the parents were still nobody junk traders dead on Jakku, and that The Rise of Skywalker only added why they hid, with Daisy Ridley saying she finds both ideas interesting.▰▰▰▱▱ roughly even chance1 against3 points
    Supports
    • In The Last Jedi, Rey is claimed to be a "nobody" whose parents abandoned her for drinking money, while The Rise of Skywalker reveals that her parents actually hid her away because she was descended from Emperor Palpatine. Many commentators have viewed this change as a retcon, but Ridley responded to a question about this being a retcon by stating she finds both ideas interesting.Rey Skywalker (Behind the scenes) - Wookieepedia (canon) analysis
    • Ren revealed what he thought was the truth about her parents; they were both junk dealers who traded her away for money and died on Jakku, buried in an unmarked grave.Rey Skywalker - Wookieepedia (canon) analysis
    Against
  • Whether Rey's father is best understood as a biological son of Palpatine or a manufactured clone is disputed across canon media: the on-screen films say only that her father was the son of the Emperor, implying a natural child, while reference books and the novelization specify he was a failed strandcast clone grown from Sidious' genetic template who happened to be biologically human and Force-blind.▰▰▰▱▱ roughly even chance2 against3 points
    Supports
    Against

Debunked 1refuted by the evidence

Unresolved 2no settled answer

  • The exact biological nature of Palpatine's son is left deliberately vague: on screen the films only ever say son, and even canon's own reference material describes the strandcast as not a direct cloned replicate of the donor while insisting he was created from an engineered template and that a Force-blind template did not reliably pass on its traits, so whether Dathan was a naturally conceived child or a lab-grown copy of the Emperor is never pinned down.▰▰▱▱▱ likely2 points
    Supports
  • How much of Rey's existence Palpatine engineered is left unresolved: canon says Sidious had not anticipated his son's marriage to Miramir and did not plan the natural birth, yet also that he had foreseen what Rey could become and always intended a Palpatine heir strong enough to hold his spirit, so whether her Force-strong birth was the Emperor's design or a fortunate accident he later seized on is never settled.▰▰▱▱▱ likely2 points
    Supports
    • While Sidious had not anticipated his son's marriage with the woman who gave birth to Rey, he saw in his granddaughter an opportunity to ensure his legacy's survival, having deemed her the genetic heir to a new Sith Empire.Strand-Cast - Wookieepedia (canon) analysis
    • Rey's grandfather had foreseen what she had the capability of becoming, recognizing her immense strength in the Force, and that such power was not mere ordinary power. It was his own power. Because of this, Sidious was determined to make certain that one day, Rey would embrace her destiny as a Palpatine.Rey Skywalker - Wookieepedia (canon), citing The Secrets of the Sith analysis

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star warsreypalpatinesequel trilogyretconthe last jedithe rise of skywalkerkylo renstrandcast

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