A while back, we asked members of the BuzzFeed Community to tell us about the most interesting celebrity Wikipedia page they know of. Here are their funny, upsetting, and truly shocking responses:
BTW, this should probably go without saying, but because this information all comes from Wikipedia, take it with a grain of salt, ya know?
1. "Mark Ruffalo's brother was found outside his home with a gunshot wound to the head. The case remains unsolved."
2. "Matthew McConaughey's dad died during intercourse."
3. "Ryan Gosling. This isn't the only part that was good, but it is the very best part: 'He "hated" being a child, was bullied in elementary school, and had no friends until he was 14 or 15.' In grade one, having been heavily influenced by the action film First Blood, he took steak knives to school and threw them at other children during recess. This incident led to a suspension."
4. "Sam Cooke. After he was killed, his protégée, Bobby Womack, showed up to the funeral wearing Cooke’s suit. Three months later, he married Cooke’s wife, Barbara. He later released a song about sleeping with his friend’s wife. They ended up divorcing after Barbara caught Womack in bed with her and Cooke’s 17-year-old daughter, Linda. Barbara fired a gun at his head, but it only grazed him. Linda later married Womack’s brother, Cecil, and they had several children together."
5. "Rod Stewart and the chart of all of his relationships, with sections like if he married them, how long they were together, and how many kids they had."
6. "Frank Lloyd Wright — does he count as a celebrity? Because his life was wild. He left his wife and a buncha kids and started dating his neighbor's wife. Then, she was literally ax-murdered!!"
7. "Jerry Lee Lewis's page is a pretty long read and casually mentions he could be possibly responsible for one of his wives' death."
8. "David Bowie and his first wife were late to their wedding because they were having a threesome."
9. Charlize Theron's mother killed Charlize's father in self-defense when she was a teenager."
10. "Dexter Holland. The Wikipedia page for the lead singer of The Offspring is wild. I wish someone would write an end-of-the-world movie starring Dexter Holland as the amazing microbiologist, rock star, pilot, hot sauce-making, surfing, stamp collector that he is."
11. "Dennis Rodman, for sure. Dude has something like 30 siblings? And let's not forget his journeys to North Korea."
12. "Courtney Love, hands down. Her life started out with her dad (who was the tour manager for the Grateful Dead) dosing her with acid as a toddler. By the time she was 20, she had: moved to New Zealand, got kicked out of boarding school, moved back to the states, and became legally emancipated at age 16. She was a topless dancer in Japan, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, lived in London with a member of Echo & the Bunnymen, briefly became the singer of Faith No More, and cleaned vintage costumes for Paramount Pictures. That's not even half of it! An absolutely unhinged biography."
13. "Kelsey Grammer has had a very unfortunate start to life. Most of his family died young or were murdered."
14. "Tammi Terrell. Her 'Personal Life' and 'Death' sections will make you further revere her duet partner Marvin Gaye while providing terrifying portraits of James Brown (who abused her in a relationship, and when she was just 17) and David Ruffin (who proposed to her while he was already married)."
15. "Jack Nicholson grew up thinking that his mother was his older sister. She had him as a teenager, and his grandparents pretended that they were his actual birth parents. He found out as an adult when a researcher from Time magazine told him."
16. "Anne Heche's whole life was filled with trauma, from beginning to end. Her father died of AIDS, she was estranged from her openly-homophobic Christian mom, and three of her four siblings died before she was 40 (including one infant death and an apparent suicide). After her high-profile relationship and breakup with Ellen DeGeneres, agents were hesitant to cast her. She eventually had a meltdown at a California ranch in 2000 and created a fantasy 'Fourth Dimension' world. And then, the page talks about her recent, fatal car crash and how it was complete chaos."
17. "Elizabeth Taylor. If I recall correctly, a lot of Elizabeth Taylor’s husbands/boyfriends had the same age, from her early 20s to her 60s; she just loved men at a certain age."
18. "Woody Harrelson. I absolutely LOVE Woody Harrelson, but imagine my utter shock when I discovered his father was a bona fide hitman who assassinated a federal judge. His dad also apparently claimed that he was the one who shot JFK, but apparently, that was said to stall his arrest 💀. Oddly enough, this makes me love Woody Harrelson even more??? Like, how could you not have a sense of humor after having a father like that?"
19. And finally, this less-shocking, but more wholesome tidbit: "Alan Alda and how he met his wife. A cake fell on the floor at a wedding, and they were the only two guests that ate it."
Note: Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.