25 People Shared Their Dark Family Secrets, And It's Equally Juicy And Shocking

    Somebody call Maury!

    Alexa Lisitza
    by Alexa Lisitza

    BuzzFeed Staff

    If you clicked on this article, you're obviously here for mess, so I won't hold you up before we get to the good stuff. Just know that Reddit user u/AbsoluteHavoc recently went viral when they asked the internet, "What family secret was finally spilled in your family?" These are the top-voted replies:

    Giphy: @vh1 / Via giphy.com

    1. Uncle spilled a drunk secret:

    Giphy: @SNL / Via giphy.com

    "We went to my grandmother's for Christmas dinner, and my uncle drank too much. He kind of hinted that he had an affair with my mother. A couple of months and two DNA tests later, we found out my sister is actually his daughter. My dad never spoke to his brother again. And of course, my parents got divorced. And I needed a lot of therapy...and chocolate."

    —u/oliveotherraindeer

    2. Incest ran in the family:

    @DrSquatchSoapCo / Giphy / Via giphy.com

    "I started having problems with my teeth. Spontaneous abscess that resulted in multiple root canals. My dentist did some looking into what the cause might be and found some really odd abnormalities with my incisor roots and nerves. When my next appointment came up, he was really quiet for a bit before verbally stumbling about. It turns out that what was happening with my teeth was a classic sign of inbreeding. I brought it up to my mom and she was like, 'Oh well, yeah, didn't you know?' Of course I didn't know! Turns out that not very far back in the family tree, several of my relatives decided that it was a good idea to get married to one another and no one bothered to mention it."

    —u/zombie_tomato

    3. Uncle's army troop fostered a baby:

    @benjaminbooker / Giphy / Via giphy.com

    "My uncle served in Vietnam. While over there, his troop found a baby that had been orphaned or abandoned. My uncle was shipping back to Australia soon and wanted to adopt him, but my aunt said no. My uncle's troop found a family to raise the baby, and that's the story the whole family knows. The secret is that my uncle and some other guys from his troop stayed in contact with the family and the kid, sending them money every month to help raise him and then to help him go to university. Eventually they helped him and his adoptive family move to Australia in the late '90s."

    —u/Aetra

    4. Auntie has a different dad from everyone else:

    @TreyKennedy1 / Giphy / Via giphy.com

    "My mother is kid number 7 of 10. My aunt, the fourth kid, was born in 1945. She looked at her ancestry and found out that she has a different father from everyone else. She was devastated. There was always a rumor that there was an affair, but nobody talked about it. She has so many questions, but nobody's alive to answer her."

    —u/I_see_farts

    5. Grandma was a bootlegger:

    Reddit / Giphy / Via giphy.com

    "My grandma didn't drive. I thought she couldn't, but it was just never discussed. One day, no one would take me to the store. Finally I said I'd just ask Grandma, and my cousin chimed in with, 'Grandma can't drive.' But Grandma said, 'Oh, you bet your sweet ass I can drive. They just don't let me!'

    "Years later, my mom explained that during Prohibition, Grandma bootlegged alcohol for moonshiners. She was so successful at it that when the moonshiners were finally busted, her license was suspended by the state. Later in life, she was told she could petition for it back, but it came with an admission of guilt or some such. She told 'em to go to hell."

    —u/ronearc

    6. Their parents got married because they were expecting:

    @RobertEBlackmon / Giphy / Via giphy.com

    "My parents 'had' to get married. They always told us they got married in 1961, but it was 1962, three months before my sister was born. What's amusing is that my father was an accountant who was insanely fast with math. Whenever he was asked how many years they'd been married, he'd be off by one. My mother would correct him through clenched teeth, and then my father would nod and agree."

    —u/dramboxf

    7. An unknown sister showed up at their dad's funeral:

    @unsigrandsoleil / Giphy / Via giphy.com

    "My father died when I was 17. During the viewing, a young lady and her boyfriend showed up. She was probably two or three years older than me. Nobody recognized her, so she was asked why she was there; she stated she was there to see her father. My siblings and I were naturally confused; our mom just stood there shaking her head, and my uncles asked her to leave. She left crying in her boyfriend's arms. Our mother explained that our father had an affair years ago and that was our stepsister. I never heard any more about her, never learned her name, and have never met her. I would like to meet her and apologize for my family. Seeing her rejected and crying because she couldn't even attend a viewing for her dead father bothers me to this day."

    —u/DougJHFTB

    8. Grandma and Grandpa got married for insurance:

    Kardashiansanonymous / Giphy / Via giphy.com

    "My aunt wasn't my grandfather's child. He met my granny when my aunt was a very sick infant; she had polio and wasn't expected to survive. My granddad married my granny so she could get on his insurance and move to an area that had proper medical support. My granddad loved my aunt as if she was his own, and I never knew until she went to her bio dad's funeral when I was a teenager."

    —u/knittybitty123

    9. Mom's gambling debt:

    @abcnetwork / Giphy / Via giphy.com

    "When my mother fell ill, I took over her finances and found thousands of pounds of gambling debt on her credit cards."

    —u/Cocobean4

    10. Grandma's long-lost child:

    @new-girl / Giphy / Via giphy.com

    "Found out my grandma had a baby as a teenager, and my great-grandparents forced her to give him up for adoption. Forty years later, he found us."

    —u/dont-take-my-soup

    11. Their dad died and nobody told them:

    @power / Giphy / Via giphy.com

    "Last week, I discovered that my dad died two years ago and no one bothered to tell me. I'd been looking for him. He was a drifter and I'm his only child. I stumbled across his headstone on findagrave.com while digging through Ancestry. His marker was labeled 'Beloved brother.' My aunts and uncles are pieces of shit...I'm not hard to find. I don't even know how he died."

    —u/nightcrawler616

    12. Their cousin is their sister:

    @cbc / Giphy / Via giphy.com

    "My cousin is actually my sister. Apparently my mom got pregnant really young, and her much older sister adopted my sister and raised her as her own."

    —u/voice_of_craisin

    13. "My grandmother had an affair with the gynecologist who delivered my dad. We learned about this after she died when we found some of the letters they exchanged."

    @imsorry / Giphy / Via giphy.com

    —u/MargoJane

    14. Grandpa was in the Secret Service:

    @snl / Giphy / Via giphy.com

    "When my paternal grandfather died, the federal government reached out to do a state funeral. He was a colonel, so we didn't question it. Then the funeral came and they went ALL OUT! Huge procession, people showing up who are really big names, like heads of departments, senators, retired senators, people from the CIA — it was nuts, and we were all super confused. Turns out he was a key dude in the OSI during World War II, and when the OSI splintered into the CIA and Secret Service, he went the Secret Service route. He wasn't on the White House detail but instead worked in a covert office that dealt with counterfeiting and currency. For whatever reason, he told no one about all his work, and the only person who knew (my grandmother) was sworn to secrecy."

    —u/haroldtitus425

    15. My mom was a 90-day fiancé:

    @tlc_network / Giphy / Via giphy.com

    "After my mom died, I found out the real story behind my parents' marriage. She came to my father's country to visit some of her relatives. She met my father, and after just one week, she asked him to marry her so she could stay in the country. My father accepted because he had no one else and his parents were pressing him to get married already. But the highlight of the story is that over some time, the two of them fell in love."

    —u/Amendris

    16. "The nanny I had when I was younger was actually my dad's attempted sister-wife."

    @ifc / Giphy / Via giphy.com

    —u/soulfood_7

    17. Auntie's husband was not their father:

    @empire / Giphy / Via giphy.com

    "About a month ago, my mother-in-law's 88-year-old sister revealed on her death bed that her husband's best friend was actually the father of all four of her children. Her husband was an abusive jerk, by all accounts. While everyone was shocked, no one was saddened by this news."

    —u/roo1ster

    18. "My great-great-grandfather was exiled and banned from Missouri for being a sheep thief."

    Reddit / Giphy / Via giphy.com

    —u/ksromo

    19. My sister's cancer brought out the truth:

    @CurfewSeries / Giphy / Via giphy.com

    "When my sister was diagnosed with cancer and her survival chances were low, it inevitably came out that she wasn’t my sister. My parents must have felt like we should all know the truth, just in case. She survived her treatment and will always be my sister."

    —u/a_kid_a_91

    20. Grandma's secret recipe was KFC:

    BuzzFeed / Giphy / Via giphy.com

    "My grandmother recently died. She was famous in our town for her amazing cooking and catering. Notably, her gravy was absolutely amazing. So delicious. She had a heart attack several years ago, and her near-death experience convinced her to share some of her secret recipes with me — all except her gravy recipe. When she died this spring, I was going through her pantry and found an entire bucket of KFC gravy mix. She was literally using KFC gravy mix as a base to make her incredible gravy. Huge scandal."

    —u/beaubandit

    21. "My dad fathered a child in high school. His side of the family knew, as did my mom. We found out, years after he died, that we have a half sister."

    90s90s90s / Giphy / Via giphy.com

    —u/2leewhohot

    22. "Found out my uncle is actually my brother. My mom had him when she was young, so my grandparents raised him."

    YouTube / Giphy / Via giphy.com

    —u/Picklesgal111

    23. Grandpa was an atomic soldier:

    newworldorder / Giphy / Via giphy.com

    "My grandfather was an atomic soldier. Instead of sending him to fight in the Korean War, they sent him to Nevada, where he witnessed the mushroom cloud. After that was over, he was ordered to march to the detonation point, where he was unwittingly exposed to high amounts of radiation. Luckily for my family, my grandpa is now in his nineties and the rest of us are cancer-free and fairly healthy, but this is medical information that we really should have known earlier!"

    — Anonymous

    24. Mom cheated on my dad with my now-stepfather:

    @wetv / Giphy / Via giphy.com

    "My mom cheated on my dad with my now-stepfather. I knew the divorce was in 1996, but my mom and stepfather started dating in 1995. On my 18th birthday, my stepfather confessed to me in private that they had an affair and he still feels awful because he feels like he broke up the family. Some years later, my stepmother told me that my mom actually kicked out my dad without telling him why. She just 'needed a break.' My dad later found out through the landlord that my stepfather had moved in."

    —u/forshuregirl

    25. "My great-grandma was Cherokee. I took a DNA test and have no Cherokee ancestry. (I have questions.)"

    @maury / Giphy / Via giphy.com

    —u/digitalmofo

    Now I have to know – what family secrets have you uncovered? Let us know in the comments.

    Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.