the internet

Yes, Jack Black’s Mom Really Did Help Save Apollo 13

Photo: Randy Shropshire/Getty Images for The Art of Elysium

In case you haven’t heard, the internet is chockablock with misinformation. Sure, there’s the truly villainous stuff like COVID-19 denying et al., but there’s also so much fake information about celebs. Flo from Progressive isn’t dead, nobody got a rib removed so they could self-pleasure, and Bella Hadid did not Postmates a tray of deviled eggs. But sometimes the internet is right. Don’t feel bad if you scrolled social media and ignored the Reddit excerpt that claimed Jack Black’s mom worked on the Apollo 13 rescue mission while in labor with Jables. Sounds fake! But according to Snopes, it’s absolutely true. “Judith Love Cohen, who helped create the Abort-Guidance System which rescued the Apollo 13 astronauts, went to work on the day she was in labor,” a Reddit “TIL” post read. “She took a printout of a problem she was working on to the hospital. She called her boss and said she finished the problem and gave birth to Jack Black.”

Neil Siegel, Jack Black’s half brother, wrote a 2016 obituary for his mother that cited the Apollo 13 project as her greatest professional accomplishment: “She actually went to her office on the day that Jack was born,” he wrote. “When it was time to go to the hospital, she took with her a computer printout of the problem she was working on. Later that day, she called her boss and told him that she had solved the problem. And … oh, yes, the baby was born, too.” Jack Black has been on the internet’s collective mind of late. He trended on Twitter last week, just because folks remembered he was talented. And Jezebel reminded us last year that Jack Black is, in fact, extremely effable.

Yes, Jack Black’s Mom Really Did Help Save Apollo 13