25 People Who Died With Their Secrets...Only To Be Revealed After Their Death
Note: Discussions of death, suicide, and abuse.
We all have secrets...but only some of us will take them to the grave.
Recently, we rounded up some replies from this Reddit thread that asked: "What disturbing fact came to light about a family member after they passed away?" From unknown families to hidden cash, there was no shortage of secrets that were probably supposed to remain...secret.
The stories reminded me that all humans carry a multitude of knowns and unknowns that can impact perceptions and relationships of a person, whether good or bad. So, I turned the question back to the BuzzFeed Community, who shared more terrifying, painful, and shocking secrets they uncovered after someone passed.
I was reminded, once again, that there's often A LOT we don't always know about someone...oh, and a lot of the US's dark, twisted history was really not that far away. Here's everything they shared:
1."My grandfather went on the road looking for work during the Great Depression. He was picked up by a couple while hitchhiking in east Texas in the 1930s. After he died in 1955, my dad found a local newspaper article in my grandfather's stuff telling of the incident. We found out the couple was Bonnie and Clyde."
2."My father passed away from cancer in 2016. He had always been adamant about how much he hated drugs. He raised us in a drug-free household and didn't even drink. He had a part-time job where he would go to high schools and give presentations about staying away from drugs. After he passed, my sister and I were looking at his belongings in the attic. Hidden in a corner was a suitcase. We opened it up, expecting it to be full of old clothes or paperwork..."
"Inside were several stacks of $20 bills, around $10,000. My sister and I looked at each other in surprise. As we went through the suitcase, we were even more shocked to find several blocks of cocaine. After a quick Google search, we found out that it would have been worth over $100,000. We threw the drugs in our neighbor's trash can, just in case, and donated the money to a rehab facility. We never told anyone else in our family about what we found. It still shocks me that my father, who was so passionate about his hate for drugs, was a drug dealer."
—Anonymous
3."When my dad died, my mom was quick to tell us there was no life insurance. In fact, she brought it up. We were not surprised or anything; they were old and comfortable, and we kids are all grown, so really, no dependents would need to be provided for. Everything passed to her. When she passed away, my sister and I met a few times with their lawyer to settle the estate. During one of the first meetings, the lawyer disclosed to us that there WAS a life insurance policy that my dad had that named us kids as beneficiaries. My mom was not forgetful; she did not have dementia. She knew that policy existed but chose to keep it from us."
4."My uncle was a professional gambler. When he passed away, the family found a treasure trove of photos and letters from Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. He never told anyone he played cards with Sinatra and Martin or had dinner with them. Apparently, the three men bonded over golf. No one in the family knew my uncle played golf. He had an entire secret life in Vegas. He dated a showgirl and kept a car out there. We found old Sands Hotel items, including a whole box of their old slot machine tokens. We found autographed records of the Rat Pack. The biggest shock was a photo of my uncle playing cards, and Elvis was standing behind him in the background."
"The showgirl my uncle dated became his third wife, but she never said a word about their lives in Vegas. We found receipts where the Sands Hotel comped my uncle a room for their honeymoon. There were tickets and receipts from Vegas shows. My uncle traveled to Vegas about six times a year, always, as he said, for work to play in tournaments. None of the family ever traveled with him because he made it out to be a boring drudge."
—Anonymous
5."I had an uncle Joe who was a dapper gentleman. He was always dressed to the nines. Cigarette held in an ivory holder. I adored him. He was like no one else I had ever seen. When my mom was dying, she told me he was [intersex], and his birth certificate indicated he was named Josephine and declared female, even though he had both types of sex organs. He never had any surgeries and was happily married to my mom's sister for 40+ years."
6."A couple of years after my uncle passed away, his daughter reached out via an ancestry site. We didn't know he had a daughter. Neither did he. He had gone AWOL from the Navy and gotten a woman pregnant. He went back to his assignment and never heard from the woman again. About two years ago, his son, whom my uncle also didn't know about, also reached out via an ancestry site. I'm just waiting for a third kid at this point."
7."My dad was a closeted gay man who participated in BDSM/cross-dressing and sex slave relationships. He had been an investment banker and married to my mom for over 57 years. I found all his accouterments (high heels, nail polish, furry handcuffs, fishnets). We had found out years before that he was talking to men but didn't know the extent of it. There were videos, fetish websites, and a burner phone."
"I located his 'master,' who actually wanted a relationship with my dad. As a bisexual woman myself, I'm saddened by the fact that he was so closed off and non-emotional from what he was holding for so many years."
8."I found out while I was in my 50s that I had an older sister by my father. He was dead; my aunt, my dad's sister, told me that he had an affair with a married nurse during WWII. The nurse passed away; her husband came home and took the daughter with him, knowing she wasn't his, to California. I'm sure the daughter doesn't know. When I asked questions, no one would answer them. I asked everyone I could think of, but no one helped. I don't have any family but my children and grandchildren, for whom I am so grateful. My daughter bought me an ancestry kit, hoping she was in their database, but she wasn't. I was so disappointed; I would love to know her. I'm 75 years old now."
—Anonymous
9."It's finally my time to shine. Years ago, my husband kissed me good night and said he was leaving to work the night shift. I received a phone call from paramedics around midnight that he had died in a car accident. I was immediately confused as the accident occurred almost two hours from our home and his work. Over the weeks and months after his death, secrets began to come out. His blood alcohol levels came back that night over three times the limit, but almost 15 years later, I still do not know where he went drinking that night or who he was with."
"Other secrets would constantly come out as people shared what they thought were harmless memories, which accidentally informed me of more times that he had lied about his location when he was supposed to be at work. I think the kicker, though, was two days after his funeral; I found his Craigslist ad looking for a hookup along with nude photos of himself. This man left me a widow who was six months pregnant and with a 2 year old to take care of, and I'm not sure that I will ever know all of his secrets or what events led to his death that day."
10."My mother-in-law found out she had a half-brother after her dad passed. Pretty normal, right? BUT the story is crazy. When her dad was 16, he was sleeping with a married neighbor who was in her 30s. She got pregnant with his child, and raised it with her husband as their own. Her dad knew it was his but never said anything. He then had my mother-in-law pretty young and lived on the same street. So, my mother-in-law remembers playing with the kid across the street, who 45 years later turned out to be her half-brother. We met him recently, and the resemblance is uncanny. Crazy! That woman would be in jail today."
11."When my grandmother was alive, I knew she had been sent to the Carlisle Industrial School as a child. After she died, I found out that she was sent from Carlisle to the Pawnee School in Genoa, Nebraska, when she was about 10 years old. The Pawnee School put kids into homes as slaves, and many of them were killed and abused. My grandmother survived because she was made a slave at the school as a seamstress. She learned to sew at Carlisle, and those skills probably saved her life. She was not sent out to white homes but kept at the school."
—Anonymous
Between the early 1800s and the 1960s, hundreds of thousands of Native American children were coerced and forcibly removed from their homes and sent to schools operated by the U.S. government in an effort to "civilize the savage." In these schools, children were stripped of their culture and punished for speaking their Native language.
To this day, the fates of many children who never came home are still unknown. The U.S. government just started accounting for its role in the operation and resulting effects this year, in 2024 (a federal report found that more than 900 Native American children died while being forced to attend Indian boarding schools, and many were buried in at least 74 marked and unmarked graves, though both estimates are probably greater, the report said).
12."Everybody knew my grandfather was a police officer. I knew, even as a child, he was a police officer. Growing up, I used to meet other retired officers who worked with my grandfather and would joke to us that our grandfather 'was the meanest man I know.' I didn't know him as a mean person; in fact, quite the opposite. He was a wonderful grandfather, a devout Christian! It wasn't until his funeral that it all made sense."
"During his eulogy, my uncle briefly mentioned how my grandfather had a dark time in his past and spent the rest of his life in redemption as an exemplary Christian. At 21 years old, sitting in the pew of a funeral home, all of the dots connected, and the reality of my grandfather's past hit me in the gut. He was a police officer, I think a captain, in the '60s... in Birmingham, Alabama."
—Anonymous
In the 1960s, during the Birmingham campaign of 1963, police officers, directed by segregationist Commissioner of Public Safety and white supremacist Bull Connor, used high-pressure fire hoses, clubs, and police attack dogs against nonviolent civil rights protesters, including children. The images are known to be some of the most disturbing visuals of the entire Civil Rights Movement.
13."When my father died, his other daughter DM'ed us on Facebook. She said she was the daughter of my dad. She said her mom and my dad met at a bar. Of course, we didn't believe her. She ended up sending us letters that he wrote to her mother acknowledging the pregnancy. She even sent us a picture of my dad when he was holding her. It was very odd. Apparently, she was told we were very rich and had a mansion with a wait staff and all."
"She wanted her % of the estate. There was no estate because everything went to my mom, and when my mom died, there was nothing to her estate. Apparently, my mom knew about the child the entire time but my dad was adamant that she not tell anyone about it. The daughter ended up calling and messaging us nonstop about needing money. We blocked her."
—Anonymous
14."This is a sad one. After a family member died, we went through her phone and diary and learned that her longtime husband was physically abusive to her. It was devastating to learn this, and I wish that we had been able to help her while she was still alive. What I learned is that abuse can hide in plain sight, and abusers aren't stereotypical Hollywood villains. A person can be sweet to animals, say 'I love you' to lots of people, have many friends, do heroic work in their community, etc., and still physically abuse their spouse."
—Anonymous
15."Not only did we find out my mother had SEVERE diagnosed-but-untreated diabetes (which she had apparently secretly refused care for while continuing to guzzle Pepsi daily while LITERALLY ON HER DEATHBED — meaning that, combined with her other ailments, she had essentially committed slow suicide), we also found an ARREST RECORD showing that she'd spent a night in jail for shoplifting several years earlier (despite being a deeply law-abiding Christian her entire life). My dad had no memory of her ever having spent a night away, so how she managed to cover for her overnight absence (let alone how she afforded the $2k fine while on welfare), we still have NO idea."
—Anonymous
16."While going through our 86-year-old grandmother's house after she passed, we found her passport. Everyone celebrated her birthday on October 25 forever. I even got married on October 25 to honor her. Her passport said her date of birth was October 28. We have no idea where the 25th came from!"
17."I have a rare genetic disorder, so I have volunteered for tons of DNA tests. I’ve also meticulously traced my family tree back many generations on all sides in honor of my grandma, who was obsessed with genealogy, only to find that I’m 20% an ethnicity that shows up NOWHERE in my 'official' family tree. I know DNA doesn’t adhere to geopolitical borders, but this 20% is from a place WAY off and so isolated that it’s actually studied for its DNA. Grandma……….👀"
18."When I was about 8 years old, my grandfather in Poland was suffering from throat cancer. My parents emigrated to Maine from Poland in the early '80s. We got word that he wasn't doing well and had little time, so my mom and I hopped on a plane to fly to Poland to say our goodbyes. When we landed, as we were walking through the airport, we saw my aunt waiting for us with a solemn look on her face. My grandfather had passed away mid-flight. I still remember my mom breaking down and crying right there at that moment."
"We stayed for a while to help my grandma get all the affairs in order. While doing so, we discovered that he had another property in a different part of the country. While investigating, we found that there was another woman who lived there, too. Long story short, it turned out that he had a whole other secret family. My mom's whole life, he would go away on 'business trips' twice a week for a couple of days. He told the other woman the same when he was with our family. My grandma sadly pretended like it didn't happen. My mom found out she had a half-brother in his 40s the whole time. It's wild what one could get away with without today's technology. I would imagine pulling that off now would be extremely difficult."
—Anonymous
19."My grandfather worked in television in the late '50s/early '60s, right when the broadcasting industry was really taking off in North Carolina. Key info: He worked with both Black and white men on his broadcasting crews at a time when NC was HEAVILY segregated and discriminatory. Everyone in the family thought he got fired from his first TV job because he made a careless mistake with footage and an expensive camera. After finding his old journals when cleaning out my grandparents' house after he died, I found out the actual reason he got fired."
"Higher-ups at the company he worked for kept sending mix-raced crews to segregated places and never did anything to support the Black men who were being treated absolutely horrendously and excluded from these segregated environments. My grandfather, who was a very kind, gentle person, TORE into the higher-ups. He called out their racism and told them that they should be utterly ashamed of how they were letting talented, knowledgeable, hard-working Black men get thrown to the wolves because they didn't care about the racist laws/norms in that town. They fired my grandfather because he stood up to them about their racism. None of us knew the truth until I found his old journals."
—Anonymous
20."My best friend committed suicide. I later found a journal among his things where he listed everyone he had slept with. My ex-wife's name was among them. From what I knew, the list was chronological, meaning it had occurred while we were married. I had no idea whatsoever until reading it at that moment."
—Anonymous
21."I learned that my best friend and soulmate of 30 years left a $40,000 lien on our house and over $30,000 of credit card debt. I was so devasted by her loss that the money seemed inconsequential. We always joked about leaving this world with more than we came in with... My life has never been the same."
—Anonymous
22."My husband took care of the finances, and we were well invested (so I thought). When he died, I called the brokers to transfer the accounts to my name. There was nothing. He gambled everything away, and I was left flat broke with maxed-out credit card debt to cards I never knew about. Ladies, watch your bank accounts and finances like a hawk; do not rely on your loved one to take care of you."
—Anonymous
23."My kind, adoring grandfather abandoned his family during the war, leaving his young wife and four children in poverty. Practically, I can't imagine how hard life was for his wife, who was still nursing their baby when he left. We don't know if they thought he had died or if they knew the truth. We know they lived hard, brutal lives without a 'breadwinner' in the home at that time."
"I can't reconcile the image of the man who cherished and adored me with a man who left his first four children to struggle in extreme poverty. My grandmother, his second wife, knew all of this, and they weren't even legally married until they were 60, after his first wife died. The same woman who loudly judged people who were divorced, single mothers, or couples' living in sin' knew she herself was living with a man who turned his back on his own babies."
—Anonymous
24."My great uncle, a lifelong bachelor, passed in the late '90s. In his will, it was discovered he had a child with a woman of a different faith as a young man, presumably in the 1930s-40s. His family would only 'allow' their relationship if she had a boy, but she had a girl, so they ended it. My grandma knew about it, but everyone else was shocked. As I understand it, we found out his daughter lived near us, and my mom went to meet her, but I guess she said she wasn’t interested in knowing more after what happened. I can’t blame her, although it saddens me knowing I have family we'll never meet because of a bigoted decision 90 years ago."
—Anonymous
And lastly:
25."When my grandmother passed away in the 1990s, we found a box of letters hidden behind a drawer in the kitchen. Its contents have been a family story for years since. She and our grandfather were very strict and religious, enforcing crazy doctrines and rules in their home whenever we visited. After he died, she leaned further into these demands, requiring all the granddaughters to wear dresses in her home. While cleaning out her house after she passed, we found letters going back several decades from women who described passionate and secret love affairs while our grandfather was at work and my dad and his siblings were at school. The most recent letter was dated about a year before her passing. We were all shocked."
—Anonymous
Did you discover a secret—whether tragic, sad, funny, or surprising—after someone passed away? Let me know in the comments or by submitting to this anonymous form.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. Other international suicide helplines can be found at befrienders.org. The Trevor Project, which provides help and suicide-prevention resources for LGBTQ youth, is 1-866-488-7386.
If you or someone you know is in immediate danger as a result of domestic violence, call 911. For anonymous, confidential help, you can call the 24/7 National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE) or chat with an advocate via the website.
