10 Surprising Facts About Ransom Canyon’s Josh Duhamel — Including His Royally-Connected Ancestor!

Screen star Josh Duhamel portrays a modern-day Texas rancher in the hot new Netflix series Ransom Canyon, but here are 10 things you probably don’t know about the 52-year-old.

1. Josh was born in Minot, N.D., to teacher and businesswoman Bonnie and advertising salesman dad Larry, who divorced when Josh was young. Josh has a sister and two maternal half-sisters as his mom remarried.

2. After Minot High, Josh attended Minot State University and was the backup quarterback for the football team. He planned to attend dental school but didn’t have good enough grades to get in and ended up with a degree in biology.

3. “After college, I followed an ex-girlfriend to northern California, did a bunch of odd jobs,” Josh says. In 1997, he was named Male Model of the Year by the International Modeling and Talent Association. The runner-up was Ashton Kutcher.

4. Josh’s first acting job was as an uncredited music video extra in Donna Summer’s “I Will Go With You” and Christina Aguilera’s “Genie in a Bottle.” He then landed the role of Leo du Pres on the soap All My Children.

5. He played the title role in the 2004 romantic comedy Win a Date With Tad Hamilton! costarring Kate Bosworth and Topher Grace.

6. Josh is a descendant of Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury under Henry VIII.

7. But Josh’s biggest break came in the TV series Las Vegas, where he costarred with James Caan, James Lesure, Molly Sims, Vanessa Marcil and Nikki Cox from 2003 to 2008. He was handpicked to star in the Transformers franchise by Steven Spielberg after seeing him in an episode.

8. When not working, Josh lives in a remote lakeside cabin in rural Minnesota where he “can get back to being who I really am.”

9. Josh met his first wife, Stacy Ann Ferguson — aka Fergie of the Black Eyed Peas — when the group appeared in an episode of Las Vegas. They tied the knot in a 2009 private ceremony so secret that guests weren’t told about the location until the morning of the wedding. Fergie says Josh makes a mean lasagna and they had son Axl Jack in 2013 before divorcing in 2019. Josh married model Audra Mari in 2022. They welcomed son Shepherd in 2024.

10. Josh’s last name is pronounced duh-ah-MEL.