People Reveal The Dark Secrets They Discovered About Someone After They Died

Sometimes you never know who someone is until they're gone.

Everyone has their secrets.

That is a given.

And everyone is entitled to have their own private stories.

But some stories are Earth-shattering craziness.

Too often, we learn who someone really was after a goodbye.

Makes you question everything you ever knew.

Let's talk about truth...

A deleted Redditor wanted to hear about all of the scandalous tea exposed after people's deaths, so they asked:

"What’s the darkest secret you’ve discovered about someone after they passed away?"

The Stash

"Found out my close friend's death wasn't from an undiagnosed heart condition that his family told us, it was a heroin overdose. His family knew because they'd seen the medical report, but me and his other close friends knew nothing about it til we came together to clean out his house and discovered his stash."

- humpty_dumpty1ne

All Over 70

"At my last job, at a natural history museum, we sometimes received collections as part of a will. One time, we found valuable coins in a donated butterfly collection, so we contacted the relatives. The late donor's wife and other relatives, all over 70, sat with us as we opened the lid. Beneath the pinned butterflies were sealed envelopes. We opened them, expecting more treasure, but found love letters to another woman. The atmosphere quickly turned awkward."

- werejay

87

"Had a great-aunt (my grandmother’s sister)."

"She was a pillar of her community, and everyone loved her. She died peacefully at 87, and there was an upbeat celebration of life ceremony."

"At the end of the touching speeches, her daughter got up and announced that this woman had killed her husband/their father—who was thought to have died during a home invasion—and blackmailed the children to stay quiet."

“Celebration of life” wrapped up pretty quickly after that."

- JetPlane_88

Then the penny dropped...

"Dark, but sad-dark..."

"My dad's eldest cousin died very suddenly of an aneurysm when she was 40, leaving 4 children."

"Aunts and uncles in the family were rushing around trying to find my grandfather. My dad didn't understand why there was so much urgency compared to telling other relatives. Then the penny dropped."

"She was his sister."

"Before he was married, my grandfather had had an affair with a married woman. She had reconciled with her husband, but he didn't want another man's child. My great-aunt and her husband adopted the baby."

"Obviously, it was right for her to be adopted within the family if my granddad didn't want to be a single father, but the kids should have been told. My dad was an only child, and for up to 31 years, he could have known he had a big sister. He had her photo in a prominent position in his living room for the rest of his life."

- flummoxed_flipflop

FLAMES

"My grandfather was a serial arsonist and insurance fraudster who never got caught. He burned down the family home for insurance money when his kids were little. Several years later, he did it again to their new home, destroying multiple irreplaceable heirlooms and many family photos, as well as killing the family dog."

"When my dad was a teenager, Grandpa paid him and a couple of his friends/cousins to 'steal' his car and total it. They smashed it up with baseball bats and set it on fire in a ditch. Shortly before Grandpa died (in his 70s, over a decade ago), his old barn 'accidentally' caught fire and burned down too. The insurance company replaced it with a nice, shiny, new barn."

"I always wondered why my aunt had such a distant, strained relationship with her dad. Turns out she found out the truth about those house fires when she was a young adult and never recovered from it. She lost a lot that was important to her in those fires, including the dog. Can't say that I blame her."

- TheMegnificent1

The Family

"I grew up in a large family. My dad and mom had 8 kids, but my dad had 3 others from a previous marriage. They were much older than the 8, so we considered them adults while growing up."

"I spent a good deal of time with their kids growing up, as they were mostly around our age. I always thought it weird that some of these cousins looked nothing like anyone else in our family."

"Turns out one of the three kids my dad had from a previous marriage wasn't his. His wife at the time cheated on him with her drug dealer. He opted to raise the kid as his own rather than let him be raised by two druggies."

- Call4goodThyme

SHOCKED!

"Back in the day when I was a teenager my neighbor passed away… dude was like an uncle to me and my brothers and sisters… he had a daughter that to this day is like our sister… very upstanding dude, pillar of the community, coach our baseball and basketball teams, worked 2 jobs and was always present."

"So he passed away, and at his funeral, his second family shows up out of nowhere. Like a full-blown second family, mistress, 2 really young kids that look like him, the whole thing was so bizarre to understand as a teenager myself in those days. Like how? At what time?"

- Socialslander

Merry Christmas

"I just found out last year that my grandad, who passed in 2012, upped and left the family when my mum was 15, moved in with a woman, and had a son with her. He then moved back in with my mum, grandma, and aunt and pretended the son didn’t exist and everything just carried on as normal."

"Last year, my mum and aunt got a random letter from an adoption agency on behalf of the son looking to find his family, and we all met him at Christmas. We feel bad for him as he has so many questions about my grandad that we just don’t have the answers to."

- jimmyrosssss

My Dad

"My dad was a piece of work. During my lifetime, he really only had one redeeming quality, and that was how he handled my severely autistic little brother. He himself was disabled from a back injury at work, and I was working and paying the mortgage along with one of my brothers, who was helping all through high school."

"We both had a room there, but it was easier not to be there, and so I couch surfed from 16 to 18. Two of my high school teachers who knew my home circumstances got together and paid for my application, along with putting in recommendations at their alma mater, still a top 10 school today. When he died, we put anything that obviously wasn't trash into storage."

"He developed a hoarding disorder near the end of his life, so that was the easiest way to deal with it at the time. Years later, we were going through his stuff and I found an open acceptance letter with a full scholarship, plus housing and a stipend that he obviously knew about but never shared with me. I could have been Ivy League educated for free."

- polarjunkie

65

"'Not really dark, but instead sad. When my (ex) FIL passed away, his wife and all the kids thought he took care of her financially and also had everything sorted out.' He was always a very organised person and seemed to be smart enough to think of the future…. Well, this guy had 0 savings and no life insurance or anything. So his wife is now forced to work for the first time ever, and she’s 65."

- Grownupminniemouse

The Scandal

"My grandma was a teenage runaway who eloped with her boyfriend and lived with his family in a small shack. I guess my great-grandfather went to get her and they had the marriage annulled."

"I think only her sisters knew about it for years, and one of them finally told one of her kids."

"On the other side, I didn't know my great-grandfather had married a set of sisters. He was married to the oldest sister first, and she died when their baby was small. My great-grandmother moved in to take care of her for him, and they ended up getting married and having a child together too."

"My grandma and great aunt were sister-cousins."

"Also, my grandma was already a couple of months pregnant with my dad when she married my grandfather. Such a scandal for a good Christian girl back in the 50s."

- will_write_for_tacos

Mind Blown

"I live in Melbourne, Australia. My grandparents lived in Essendon and supported the Essendon Football Club. My dad was born in Essendon and supported the club. I support the club. My kids support the club."

"After my grandfather passed away, and my father had passed away, my grandmother quietly let on that she secretly supported the Western Bulldogs and had done all along."

"F**king crazy. Blew our minds."

- chowindown

To the Lord

"Two ‘wives’ with two families turned up at my work colleague’s funeral. The original wife had the words ‘gone to the Lord to ask forgiveness’ etched on his tombstone."

- gilwendeg

Oh My God Reaction GIF Giphy

Well, that is ALL a lot to digest.

Villains live among us.

So many extra families.

How can a person even keep all of these secrets?

The stress of it all would kill me.

Anyone else have some tea to spill?