Here is a list of people who self-identify as having Cherokee heritage, but who are not enrolled in any Cherokee tribe.
A
- Tori Amos – Amos has said that her maternal grandparents each had an Eastern Cherokee grandparent of their own.
C
- Asa Earl Carter, speechwriter and member of the Ku Klux Klan, attempted to reinvent himself as “Cherokee” author under the name “Forrest Carter”
- Johnny Cash, singer. Believed he had Cherokee heritage but dropped claim after he had his genealogy checked and none was found.
- Cher, actor and singer. Actually Armenian.
- Ward Churchill, author and professor, who claims to be Cherokee-Muscogee Creek
- Kenneth Copeland, televangelist –
- Kevin Costner, actor
D
- Johnny Depp, actor has “guessed” that he has Cherokee, “or maybe Creek,” despite his genealogy showing no Native ancestry.
- Cameron Diaz, actor – Her father’s family is Cuban, and Diaz’s ancestors had originally moved from Spain to Cuba. Her mother has English, Scots-Irish, and German ancestry.
- Jimmie Durham, artist
F
- Four Arrows, Don Trent Jacobs, professor, writer, b. 1946
G
- James Garner, actor
- Crystal Gayle, country singer
- Superstar Billy Graham (Eldridge Wayne Coleman), professional wrestler and fine artist
H
- Jimi Hendrix (1942-1970), musician, singer, and songwriter.
- Jamake Highwater, author who claimed to be Cherokee-Blackfeet;
J
- Nick Jonas – Singer, actor.
L
- Sylvester Clark Long (Chief Buffalo Child Long Lance, 1890–1932), actor, author, journalist
- Loretta Lynn, country singer
J
- James Earl Jones, actor, also identifies Choctaw descent.
K
- Thomas King, American-born novelist and broadcaster in Canada
M
- Meggan Mallone, American pornographic actress, 1986
N
- Joseph Noonan “Waáno-Gano,” artist
- Chuck Norris, actor, martial arts expert
P
- Dolly Parton, country singer
- Lou Diamond Phillips, actor
R
- Robert Rauschenberg, artist (Rauschenberg did not identify as Cherokee but may have had a Cherokee grandmother.)
- Della Reese, actress, singer
- Burt Reynolds, actor, director
- Bob Ross, painter and television personality
S
- Selena (1971–1995), singer
- Andrea Smith, associate professor, author
- Leon Polk Smith, Modernist painter
T
- Quentin Tarantino, film director
V
- Sarah Vowell (born 1969), author and journalist
W
- Elizabeth Warren (born 1949), U.S. Senator from Massachusetts (elected 2012)
