Ronan Farrow probably never had much of a chance of being “a typical twenty-something.” After all, Farrow graduated Bard College at age 15. While many at age 16 study for their learner’s permit, the New York City-born scholar was entering in to Yale Law School. Farrow was appointed in 2011 as a Special Adviser for Global Youth Issues by then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. When he left in 2012, Farrow began a Rhodes Scholarship at Oxford University.

That alone is enough to raise one’s eyebrows. Then you realize who his parents are… or allegedly are. Until this month, everyone believed that Ronan was the son of Woody Allen and Mia Farrow. But then in an exclusive interview with Vanity Fair, the mother left open the possibility that his biological father may in fact be Frank Sinatra, whom Mia was first married to. While their divorce was finalized in 1968, the actress told Vanity Fair that she and the singer “never really split up.”

Naturally, there has been a lot more attention that normal around the 25 year-old Ronan this month.

“It’s distracting to have a lot of attention, but it’s a great luxury in a lot of ways,” Farrow told me at the unveiling of Madison Square Garden’s new renovations last week. “If it gets an extra set of people to watch then I’m all for it.”

He’s obviously no fool: Farrow hopes that the publicity will translate in to ratings when he debuts a new show this January on MSNBC.

“The new gig is incredibly exciting,” he said of the job. “You better watch! We’ve got some exciting new ideas about how you can get involved with news stories.”

Certainly this past month has opened Ronan’s eyes to ways that can happen he never thought imaginable.