We recently asked the BuzzFeed Community, "What's the wildest out-of-pocket thing your grandparent ever did in their life?"
Welp, folks didn't hold *anything* back, and revealed some of the most unbelievable secrets about their grandparents (like...these people went through it).
So, here are the most shocking things grandparents have ever done:
Note: Some submissions include topics of gun violence, domestic abuse, and suicide.
1. "My maternal grandparents cheated on each other constantly, and lived separately for most of my mom’s childhood. My grandmother chose her affairs at work and my grandfather cheated with sex workers. Long story short, my grandfather gave my grandmother chlamydia because they were Catholic and never used condoms."
—Anonymous
2. "Turns out grandma REALLY got around, and not just when she was young. Her nickname at the retirement home was 'the gulping queen.'"
—Anonymous
3. "When my grandfather was a teenager in the early 1900s, he was in a high school play and he needed a gun as a prop. He lived on a farm and he owned a gun that he used to protect the livestock. But, what he didn't know was that his mom had loaded the gun while he was out of the room. He took the gun to school, he was rehearsing the play, and he accidentally shot his classmate (who later died)."
—Anonymous
4. "My great-grandfather was an illegal moonshiner and bootlegger. He became paralyzed after getting bucked off of a horse, but still continued by rolling in his wheelchair (his wife also helped him make moonshine and bootleg). My paternal grandfather slept with his brother's wife (but my great-uncle was sleeping with my grandfather's wife, so they were unknowingly 'wife-swapping') and he got her pregnant. However, his brother raised the kid as if she were his own. My other great-grandmother had a husband AND a boyfriend, and they all lived in the same house together for many years (like, 40 years). Nobody ever talked about it, though (nor did she)."
5. "My maternal grandfather came back from WWII with severe PTSD, to the point where he was put into a mental hospital. He escaped from the hospital one night and somehow got his hands on a gun. He made his way to where my grandmother was living, along with my mom, my auntie, and two uncles. My grandmother managed to lure him away from the house to the play-field of the local elementary school while my mom called the police. My grandfather then shot my grandma six times, including once in the head — he then went and sat down on the front doorstep of the school and died of suicide. Thankfully, my grandmother survived. My sister and I have the newspaper articles, which even have pictures of my grandma laying in her hospital bed with her head all wrapped up in bandages."
—Anonymous
6. "My grandmother had an affair with a low-level Italian noble and they had a child out of 'wedlock.' His family refused to let them marry because 'our family doesn't have babies six months before a wedding.' So, she gave the baby up, married my grandfather, and never mentioned it — ever. It was naturally a shock when nearly a decade ago, my mom was informed that she had a half-sister she'd never heard of. She was suddenly in the picture because she had done one of those ancestry DNA tests that revealed her birth mother. It's like something out of a movie — it was so unexpected because my grandmother is very Catholic, and made a huge deal about the fact that my younger sister had a child out of 'wedlock.'"
7. "My grandfather spent his career as a mild-mannered librarian. During the roaring twenties in Chicago, he played trumpet in a band in speakeasies and strip clubs, and carried a revolver in his trumpet case. When there was a police raid, he and the rest of the band would run out the back."
8. "I was driving my grandmother to visit my grandfather at his dementia care facility, and my younger sister was accompanying us, sitting in the back seat. I have no idea how the subject even came up, but out of nowhere, our grandmother starts to tell us a story about Planned Parenthood. Apparently she and her friend, Elsie, were the first gals through the doors when Planned Parenthood opened in their neighborhood. She casually stated that since she knew what our grandfather wanted from her, she had to be prepared with contraceptives. I made eye contact in the mirror with my sister who seemed equally distressed at having heard this unsolicited detail about our grandparents’ intimate life. But also, this was the early 1940s, so good on grandma for her feminist leanings."
—Anonymous
9. "My grandfather was blind from a childhood accident, and he had glass eyes. He was amazing and could do almost anything (not to mention he was incredibly intelligent). One day I found out he had been arrested for shooting a man — I dropped my head and shook it. He was found guilty, but served no jail time and was fined the ambulance fee. The man he shot lived, and it was borderline self-defense. Had he been able to see, he would have served serious time."
—Anonymous
10. "My grandfather had an affair with my grandmother's younger sister. The younger sister got pregnant and because it was such a 'disgrace,' she moved to a completely different state. Very few people knew what was going on (but my mother told me this story). My grandmother’s sister aborted the baby by drinking iodine (the iodine killed both of them). The saddest part is it took her over 12 hours to die an excruciating death."
—Anonymous
11. "My grandfather was an HR corporate executive for a large pen manufacturer based in Wisconsin. He and my grandmother were country club snobs, but that all changed after he was arrested for window peeping. He had to resign and give up the country club royalty. No one in the family ever talked about it — I didn’t even know about it until after his death. That’s when all of the secrets came out."
—Anonymous
12. "My grandfather had a baby when he was 15 years old. My great-grandmother (his mom) made him lie and tell the child that they were brothers — that she was the mom to the both of them. Many years later, the 'brothers' got into a bad fight and my grandpa revealed everything. My now great-uncle left and never came back, and we don't know where he is."
—Anonymous
13. "My grandfather told me he and his friends used to do all kinds of out-of-pocket stuff. They would lay nails on the roads and watch people pop their tires — they would also catch tires on fire and roll them down the school hill. He used to also throw fire crackers in the vents. You could not do any of this stuff nowadays — it blows my mind."
—Anonymous
14. "My grandma never talked about it and no one outside of our family knows. But, in the '80s, my grandmother ran for a state senate seat just because someone told her she would probably be good at it. She ran on a pro-life platform and won. She served one term and hated every minute of it (mostly because of the rampant misogyny)."
—Anonymous
15. "So it turns out my grandpa lied to my entire family about where we were from. My grandma's side of the family is Brazilian and Japanese while my grandpa's side was thought to be Italian (I have an Italian first name as well). No one in the generations after him had done a DNA test, and my grandma just assumed he was telling the truth about it. Well, 40 years later, my grandma is talking to my grandpa's sister about this and she goes, 'What? We're not Italian and neither was he.' Everyone was shocked (especially my mom after she named me). In the end, my aunt did a DNA test and turns out his side is actually Brazilian and Dutch — he just wanted to impress my grandma by telling her he was Italian. How romantic."
16. "My grandma was a bank robber and getaway car driver. She robbed the same bank on the same day a year later. But, because she had kids (and talked her bank-robbing friends into 'just' tying up the guards), they let her go. They only told her she had to 'get out of the county.'"
—Anonymous
17. "This is a story my cousins and I weren't told until after my grandfather passed. He was a bit of an animal guy, and my mom was telling me about how he'd make grandma nuts coming home with animals without warning. Then she goes, 'Then there was the armadillo.' What??? Me: 'Ummm, what armadillo?' 'The one he mailed home to his parents.' What? I needed details. Apparently when he was stationed in Texas for basic training before getting shipped to Germany, he managed to catch an armadillo. He then mailed a LIVE ARMADILLO to his parents in Chicago. They were good sports and let it roam the basement as a pet. I asked my aunt about it later, and her response was, 'He never told you about that?' (which confirms my mom wasn't pulling my leg)."
—Anonymous
18. And finally, "My grandmother cheated on my grandfather with his best friend. She eventually divorced my grandfather and married the best friend. The best friend had kids the same age as my dad and his siblings, so they all knew each other already. My grandmother eventually cheated on the best friend with my grandfather, later divorcing the best friend and remarrying my grandfather. They all stayed close — my dad referred to the best friend’s kids as siblings (I even grew up calling the best friend 'grandpa Dan'). There were good memories, and it didn’t seem strange as a kid — but I think back at how bizarre that situation must have been."
—Anonymous
Note: Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.