People Are Sharing The Shocking Or Interesting Deathbed Confessions That Revealed Something Truly Unexpected To Their Loved Ones
When people are on their deathbeds, they often feel an urgent need to unburden themselves by confessing secrets, regrets, or truths they've kept hidden. These last-minute revelations can be surprising or even shocking, as they may involve long-held guilt, hidden affairs, or unexpected admissions of love or wrongdoing. Sometimes, in their final moments, the need for closure and honesty outweighs the fear of judgment, leading to confessions that not only reshape how loved ones remember them but also alter their lives forever.
Recently, I came across two old Reddit threads — one from four years ago and one from eight years ago — where Redditors shared the interesting and shocking things they learned from their family members while on their deathbed. The responses range from funny to truly unbelievable. Below are the top and best comments:
1."My grandma confessed to murder on her deathbed. Usually, you’d think it was the pain relief, but she was so eccentric that it was actually believable. We traced all her ex-husbands, partners, and any other likely candidates, and fortunately, no one was missing or died an untimely death, but sometimes I wonder."
2."My dad was adopted from a woman who went to my grandparent's church and got pregnant out of wedlock. My grandpa confessed on his deathbed that he had actually had an affair with that woman, and he was my dad's real father, which was why he suggested adopting him in the first place."
3."My grandmother wrote us a letter to read at her memorial service where she admitted that she had been recruited by the CIA when she was a young woman in the 1950s. On second thought, not shocking but more mildly interesting."
4."My grandfather admitted to me and only me that he 'accidentally' had sex with a man."
5."Not exactly his deathbed, but he was on the verge of death and couldn't speak after this: My father confessed to me that I had a sister that he never told me about...he had fathered a child with a woman right before he and my mother got married, and his parents paid the woman off to go away. That was 18 years ago. We are now good friends (the sister and I), and she is a welcome part of my extended family."
6."I didn't see it, but my aunt watched her elderly mother fall down the stairs and confess just before she died that she wasn't her biological mother. She told my aunt that her oldest sister was actually her mother. The sister had gotten pregnant too young, and the mom said it was hers. A common way of handling it back then."
7."My great-uncle actually confessed to having two illegitimate sons right before he kicked the bucket in front of his own children and grandchildren. The crazy thing was that none of his children knew this life of his. Not even my great-aunt knew about it because she would have made a huge fuss if she was alive at that time and knew about it. What was crazier was that these two sons had already passed away five and seven years ahead of him, respectively. He was 98 years old, and his 'invisible' sons were 65 and 69 years old."
"The children found out that one of his invisible sons actually was a teacher at a school that his granddaughters attended when they were in high school.Nevertheless, his children decided to reach out to the children of his invisible sons. They got connected and learned more stuff about my great-uncle.Another wild thing was that I actually dated one of the granddaughters of one of the invisible sons (the one who passed away at the age of 69 years old).Talking about a few degrees of separation, aye!"
8."I met a lady on a train to Edinburgh who was really nervous because she was on the way to meet her brother for the first time in 70 years. Her parents had told her that he died when he was one, but they'd given him away because they couldn't afford so many kids. She didn't find out he was still alive until her mother confessed it on her deathbed."
9."My grandfather confessed that he had a son we never knew about. He knocked up some woman and abandoned her and their son when the child was born and never saw them again. He wondered wistfully whether that boy (now over 50) ever thought of him, ever wanted to see him. Right after he died, his son found us! He'd searched the obituaries all around the country, every week for years. He was in Louisiana, where he and my grandfather had both been born. We were in Oregon, where my grandpa died."
10."My grandpa died at the age of 104. The last day I saw him, he was sitting in his chair. I had come by to chat a bit with him. We were talking about the military since I'm in the military, and he had been for 65 years. All his life, he had been telling us how he had been fighting the German invasion of Denmark. Well, this day, he told me quietly and full of shame that he was helping the Germans take Denmark. He regrets it every day, he said."
11."My grandpa's uncle confessed to actually being his dad on his deathbed. Or what he thought was his deathbed. Turned out he made a full recovery and was alive for 10 more years, with his wife knowing he impregnated her sister."
12."My mother worked as a nurse in the biggest hospital in Copenhagen. A dude is terminally ill with cancer and had his wife, children, and entire family next to him. He decided before he died that he was gonna phone the girl he was cheating with on his wife to meet up at the hospital when the entire family was there. My mother had to move the entire family into another room when she showed up because of massive shouting and hysteria. What a selfish prick he was."
13."My great-grandma, who died a few years ago at the ripe age of 98, had a deathbed confession that really shocked my family. I wasn’t there for it myself, but she admitted that my great-grandpa, who we all thought was her first and only husband, was actually her second. The first was a man who she had two kids with before she shot him because he was abusive, and then she left the kids at an orphanage. She also burned down their house after grabbing some valuables so that she could run away to another state and let everything in town think the fire killed all four of them. Her last words were that she always wished she could have found her first two children later in life so that she could explain why she left them behind."
14."My grandma's brother was in his final moments, and he confessed to his wife that he was cheating on her with three different women. He confessed because he was afraid of going to hell, but it looked like God had other plans for him. Unfortunately for him, no one knows why, but in the blink of an eye, he got better and better, and one week later, he was released by the doctors. His wife's brother was a lawyer and they issued him divorce papers and got almost everything. He lived for another seven years without any money; all the women and his children abandoned him, so he died alone at home. Karma is a bitch."
15."My grandpa confessed to my grandma (who had divorced him 10 years prior) that while they were in the early stages of their marriage, he would sleep with her mother because she would give him money to go gambling and that my grandmother's youngest siblings may have been his child."
16."Within my family, my great uncle or something similar that — who I never met (he died in the early '70s) — was on his deathbed when my grandpa asked him, 'So...who are you really? I know you're not from our family.' Turned out the real uncle had gotten his citizenship and, within the first year of that, realized that he didn't hate Italy — he had just needed an extended break from it. So when he went home, one of his friends asked if he could just take the uncle's ID since he had always wanted to live in the US, and the uncle said yes. This was in the '30s, so it's not that surprising it worked."
17."I found out my uncle was my dad. It was crippling to me emotionally, and I have yet to tell my mom I know the truth. I took a DNA test secretly using his toothbrush and it was confirmed. I could never hurt my dad by telling him at 82."
18."My grandpa, a Sicilian man with blessed cooking skills, told us on his deathbed that his meatballs were actually frozen meatballs from the grocery store."
19.And lastly, "My grandmother admitted she didn't like my haircut."
You can read the original threads on Reddit here and here.
Note: Some responses have been edited for length and/or clarity.
