Buckle up, because these stories are a wild ride. This is the best gossip in each person's life, and it is way too shocking to announce out loud. Content has been edited for clarity.
Spill the drama! Content has been edited for clarity!
Grandma Has Been Scheming
“Do I have a tale for you?! But first, a little background. My grandma is a pathological liar, con-artist, and thief. She conned her first husband (my grandpa) into marrying her by telling hi she was pregnant, even though she definitely wasn’t. In the seventies, my grandpa had a ‘mental break’, and she committed him to an out of state psychiatric ward, where he rapidly improved. He also tested positive for arsenic poisoning. While he was away, she sold off all of his assets, and told all of his clients that he’d gone crazy, so he had to move out of state to get a job. During this time, she met her second husband, who was a millionaire. Officially, he died of a very rare aggressive cancer months after he was diagnosed, but we have other suspicions. Immediately after his death, she embezzled all of his assets and stole hundreds of thousands of dollars from his biological children. Then she came to ‘husband’ #3. Because my grandmother was still reaping the benefits of her second husband, she never legally married #3. But it’s okay, because they were perfect for each other: He was a jeweler. And a jewel thief. And a pathological liar as well. He tried to convince my entire family that he was in a band that was a contemporary of the Beatles, but none of the music buffs in my family can find any evidence of this.
Time for the newest and juiciest gossip in the family: My grandmother now has severe dementia and no longer knows who she is. The ‘third husband’ decided to cut and run. He tried to sell the house that they bought together a few years ago, move her into a nursing home, and then promptly move away. But when he tried to sell the house, they couldn’t move forward because she was a ward of the state. So my aunt and uncle decided to become her Power of Attorney, so that in the sale of the house, my grandma would get a fair shake (enough money to cover her remaining years in the nursing home and to move her closer to the rest of her family). With many, many other bumps in the road, they eventually sold the house. But now, as they are trying to relocate her to another state and are trying to get her set up with medicare, they ran into a snag: She has been using someone else’s social security number since at least 2000! She used someone else’s SSN to buy a condo, sell a condo, buy a house, and SELL ANOTHER HOUSE. And since she’s been collecting SSA as a beneficiary of her late husband, and not her own, no one caught it. We have no idea how the banks didn’t catch it, or how the person who’s identity has been stolen for 20 years has not noticed. And now she may not be able to receive medicaid going forward because of this. While it has been wildly frustrating for our family, she has stolen money from every single one of us. It seems unjust that her chickens came home to roost after she was no longer coherent. Before you ask: Yes, we have reported the fraud.”
Nobody Else Can Ever Knowo
“My grandmother told me a couple months ago that around the time of her divorce from my biological grandfather, another lady in their small town had a baby. When grandma finally saw the baby, after friends suspiciously tried to keep her from seeing it, it looked exactly like her soon-to-be ex-husband. I was the first person to be told about this. My mom now knows, but my aunts and uncles have no idea they have another half-sister running around somewhere. The reason that baby was easily identifiable aside from suspicious behavior was largely due to my biological grandpa being a redhead. There weren’t too many in town, apparently. For anyone who would suggest trying to find her, my brother took a DNA ancestry test last year. I’ll ask him about the family tree part and what he found.
Regarding telling the other family members, it’s certainly not my place. The problem is that the biological grandpa was a terrible person. He was abusive, drank himself to death, and he abandoned my mom. The other relatives want to just move on. He isn’t talked about anymore. Grandma is trying to respect that, especially for my uncle, who didn’t speak to her for a long while because he felt like she want just trying to turn the family against the grandpa. If they accidentally find out through a DNA test, it truthfully would probably be less drama that way.”
That’s So Insanely Illegal
“My office manager has a massive HR case being built against her because she’s been pulling royally shady stuff. Last year, some of us had been having issues with system access at my job, but thankfully not me. It’s a known issue and it’s been getting fixed here and there, but then it rears it’s head again. Anyway, about five or six months ago, a friend of mine in another department started losing access. My office manager (who is my boss’ boss, she runs the whole thing) tells this person to go home for the day, since you don’t have system access, and she specifically said that it wouldn’t be held against her. She goes home. This happens about eight more times where she comes to work and her systems don’t work, and she is told to go home.
Now, fast forward to about two weeks before the year ended. The girl whose been being sent home gets called over by her manager and told that she has to sign a final written warning. When asked why, she is told it’s because she has used all her PTO and sick leave. She said that is not possible and asks for proof before signing the document. Her manager pulls up all the times and days it was used, and lo and behold, it was every single time she was told to go home because of system access. This is, of course, super illegal. My coworker did not choose to go home, she did not choose to use her PTO and sick leave. My office manager DID THAT FOR HER. So just about three weeks ago, my coworker gets called in to our office manager’s office and is told that she needs to give up her medical records. That is also super illegal. She declined and told her she will not do that, and is still not signing the final written warning. She then proceeded to call HR with all of this, who then tells her, ‘It’s funny you should bring this to our attention, because you’re not the only one whose called us about things like this happening with her. We’re building a case against her as we speak.’
Things are about to go down, and I am so here for it. I hate my job, and I’ve actively been looking for a new one, but part of me wants to stick around to see if they tote her off to jail, as well as the massive nightmare that will happen when she’s fired. As of writing this piece, nothing was happening though.”=
Nothing About This Relationship Is Stable
“I have this friend, who I’ll call Joe, who is twelve years older than his girlfriend, who I’ll call Jessica. They met when she was eighteen and he was dating someone else, who we’ll call her Mary. He cheated on Mary with Jessica. Mary went psycho, they broke up, and he and the Jessica got into a relationship. The next few years, Jessica would sneak out of college to meet him. Her family didn’t like him because he was so much older, and they thought he was only in it for her money. Somehow the two of them made it for nine years. A year ago, he said in some social media post that he was single. Two months later, he announced his engagement with Jessica.
Talking to friends with more familiarity of the situation, it turned out Jessica had to put up with a lot. Mary continued to be psycho and harassed Jessica a lot. This was because she was 34 and was planning on having kids with Joe before he cheated on her, and so she considers Jessica her life-ruiner. And Joe apparently cheated on Jessica as well, triggering some mental health issues in her. After a psychotic episode, they finally broke up. But then he wanted to settle down and have kids, so he proposed to Jessica, and she accepted. Now they are planning a very elaborate wedding. I can’t wait for the nightmare that it’s going to be.”
Trapped In The Basement
“One November day, my mom took my sister and I shopping so we could help her pick out gifts for our kids. I asked why a cousin of ours who adored children never had any of her own. This led my mom into a deep trail of juicy family stories. The most unexpected was about my grandma. Apparently, a married man had pursued her, and they started a short affair that left her pregnant. She was the teenaged daughter of devout Catholic, immigrant parents, and they essentially hid her in the basement the entire nine months and forced her to give away the baby. They also threatened the dad with the actual mob to get him to stay quiet and pay for medical care.
My grandma lived most of her life depressed over what came of that child. My mom took an ancestry DNA test about a year ago and found the woman. She had been adopted by loving parents who have since passed away. She’s started coming to our family events, and my grandparents are more than pleased to have her in their lives. My grandpa has called her his daughter on multiple occasions. Also, both of my sisters have cheated on their husbands with guys they met at the gym. My husband is only very stressed by this trend.”
More Dramatic Than A Soap Opera
“A year ago my family member (26) discovered that his fiancée (29) of seven years, who he has two children with, had been having an affair with his younger brother, who just turned 18. His brother was living in his house rent free at the time as well. So his fiancée left him for his brother and had a fling with him for a couple months. The younger brother is basically homeless now, jumping from friend to friend to crash at their houses, while working at a job that he makes minimum wage at ($7.25), while she is still living under her ex-fiance’s roof. She then decided she wanted to works thing out with her ex-fiance, so they got back together and decided to reconcile the relationship, which left the younger brother furious. Shortly after that, she finds out she is pregnant, but she does not know which brother is the father. Her fiance said he would raise the baby as his own, even if it was not his. So she decides to keep the baby.
This makes the younger brother more furious, because she got rid of the child before this baby, that she knew was the younger brother’s. So the younger brother verbally attacks her for getting rid of that child and keeping this one, just because there is a chance it is her fiance’s. She is unemployed during this time, so her fiance is paying for all of the expenses. She has the baby and it ends up being the younger brother’s child and they all try to do co-parenting. The baby is three months old now, and my family member’s fiancée left him for his younger brother again!”
This Excuse Won’t Hold Up
“My uncle told my parents that he needed money because he borrowed from the Chinese mafia, and they were threatening to kill him and his family or something. My parents sent him some money, and then two weeks later he posted a picture online with a new car. My uncle said the money he borrowed was to pay off his house. He did not actually borrow from the Chinese mafia. He didn’t even get a new house. For context, we are Chinese Malaysian. Most of our family live in Malaysia while we live in North America. People usually ask us for money because my parents started a good business over here. Last year, my mom’s uncle in Malaysia asked for money to pay for his daughter’s college education, because he said he didn’t have any. The thing is that he just retired from his architecture job, so we knew he was lying. We never got the money back (not sure how much we gave, but he asked for an absurd amount, like $50,000). He is blocked on social media now. We’ve actually cut out a lot of our family and friends in Malaysia because they tried to take advantage of us. it really stinks when it’s the people you thought you trusted.”
How Could She Not See It?
“I’m a teacher, and apparently I don’t pay attention to anything. Last year, my vice principal announced that he would be leaving at the end of the year. Let’s call him Mr. Bob. I was shocked, as I liked and respected him a lot. It was well known that he was pretty unhappy, and it had been a tough year. I was confused though, because nobody else seemed shocked or upset. At the end of the year, I thought it would be nice to have everyone sign a card for him, but when I took it around, people started giving me these weird looks. Fast forward to halfway through this year. One of our teachers showed up with a change of her last name. It was now Mrs. Bob. I congratulated her and said I didn’t even know she was seeing anyone, to which she laughed and said, ‘You’re so bad.’ I was confused and shook it off.
Long story short, I just recently found out that she and Mr. Bob had fallen in love or something, and he left his wife for her. He literally divorced his wife on a Thursday and was married by Friday. I had no idea until she mentioned his first name, and that they were moving out of the state.
Looking back on it, I face palmed so much. His wife at the time also worked for the district, and at one point I ran into her and expressed how much I would miss working with Mr. Bob. She gave me a weird look and said, ‘Yeah, well apparently he’s been pretty miserable.’
To which my dumb self responded, ‘Well let’s hope he finds what he’s looking for.’ I assumed it was all about his job satisfaction. I feel so terrible about the entire thing!”
How Is She So In Denial?
“A friend of mine doesn’t have the best taste in men. She’s been talking to this guy that I swear is a pathological liar. She refuses to believe it. She just makes a lot of excuses for him while in the process of continually being disappointed and let down by him. Over the last month, he was supposed to come visit her at least ten different times. He lives three hours away, so it’s a long distance relationship. Every time he was supposed to visit, something ‘came up’. He was sick twice, then his daughter was sick, then he got ran over, then his mom’s dog was dying. All of these are excuses on why he can’t come visit. What’s messed up is it will be his idea to visit. He will constantly tell my friend he’s coming, she will tell him not to worry about it, but he will insist. All for him to give some idiotic last minute excuse on why he can’t show up. It seems to me like a lot of work to lie like that, but whatever.
This recent excuse was the most messed up. This actually happened last night. The guy insisted on coming to see my friend over the weekend. She got her hopes up, just for him to call her last minute and say he got into a car wreck. He told her he was at the hospital because he got hurt, and his car was totaled. My friend believed him at first and kept trying to ask him what hospital he was at, but he wouldn’t tell her. He even sent her a picture of the car. So my friend messaged another friend of hers, telling her what happened. Long story short, the other friend asked my friend to send her the picture, and she did some investigating and found an exact picture and article of a wreck that happened in a different state! So the guy lied about being in a wreck. When my friend confronted him about it, he started laughing his butt off and told her it was this elaborate practical joke he was playing on her. Well she believes him. It’s all a big joke, and I don’t know who to be more ticked off at: the guy for being such a shady character or my friend who is so darn naive.
My friend and the guy met almost exactly a year ago. They planned for him to drive over to where she lives, and then he could attend a double birthday party. The birthday party was actually for my friend’s niece and my daughter, because their birthdays are a day apart, and we all are really tight knit friends (my husband grew up with my friend and her brother). So we met this guy at our family event. He actually did show up and he seemed nice enough at the time. Even though we didn’t know the guy, we were all cool with him attending, so we could support my friend. She had just gotten a divorce a year prior and was dealing with self esteem issues. All understandable. And we wanted to make things as easy as possible.
They actually ended up hooking up later that night, and he went back home a day later only to then ghosted her. She later found out he was talking to someone else and had decided to pursue things with the other girl. He moved in with other girl and decided to start a relationship with her. My friend was very hurt, but stayed in contact with him, and he continued to talk to her. He was even messaging, trying to convince her that she should send intimate photos while he was in relationship with the other girl. Now him and other girl broke up, and my friend thinks she has a chance again.”
Her Entire Life Unraveled Before Her Eyes
“A friend of mine had two kids with a guy who worked in oil fields. He ‘worked’ in three month long shifts, where he would travel to another state, then come home for three months, then travel again. They were together seven years and married for five. One day, she was doing laundry and found a second cell phone in his pants. It turns out that he had been married for ten years to another woman, who he also had kids with in his ‘work’ state.
She decided to wait it out and filed for annulment, on the basis that he was married to someone else. She also filed for custody of their kids while he was gone for ‘work’. Once she had it all worked out, she called the first wife and told her that not only had he cheated on her, he married someone else and fathered two other kids. The husband angrily drove for eleven hours back to her state to find the house empty. Unfortunately for her, her not-husband-anymore found her and attacked her, blaming her for the first wife leaving him. She was in the hospital for a little while, and he is now in prison.”
What Are The Real Intentions Here?
“My fiancé works closely together with two colleagues: one is my best friend (let’s call her Beth), and the other is his best friend (let’s call him John). We like to hang out with Beth, John, and both their significant others. Beth is getting married to this really good guy, Jerry, this year. He is nice and sweet, although his jokes never really land, and to be fair: I find him kind of boring. Jerry and I never seem to be able to keep a conversation going for longer than five minutes. But no biggie, I’m not the one getting married to him. This is where John comes in. You see, when Beth started at this workplace years ago, she was single and instantly smitten with John. She found him nice, funny, and handsome. Only John was in a longterm relationship, so nothing came of that, except friendship. (John, Beth and my fiancé are something like the Three Musketeers at their workplace.) Along came Jerry in Beth’s personal life, and he and Beth started dating. Meanwhile, Beth and John stayed very good friends and colleagues. Then, two years ago, John’s longterm girlfriend cheated on him. He ended the relationship. In the mean time, Beth and Jerry had started living together, but things weren’t running so smoothly: Jerry is away for work A LOT, and due to a combination of circumstances, he was away for almost eight months. In this time, Beth and John became even closer than they already were. They went out for drinks with colleagues, but they would be the only two hanging around until the end of the night. She has this special tone in her voice when she talks to John. A lot of people started making little jokes about them being a couple.
One night, there was this work party. John put his new status as a single man to good use, flirting away with a lot of female colleagues. Beth, kept hanging around him. At one point, my fiancé pulled her aside and stated, ‘Either you man up and just kiss him like you want to, or you back off and leave him to it with Shelley from accounting.’
Beth backed off for a bit, but later that night, she had to go to the bus, and John offered to walk her there. And when they were there, waiting for the bus – talking, laughing, goofing – they looked at each other and there was this spark. They ALMOST kissed, but at the last moment Beth pulled away because, of course, she was together with Jerry and didn’t want to do that to him. Plus, John is her friend and her colleague, so kissing him would probably just complicate things instead of improving them. So they both just kind of acted like that never happened. Beth told only me and my fiancé about this weirdness between her and John. Quite soon after this, John got into a new relationship. This girl, Natalie, is a sweetheart, only she is quite possibly the polar opposite of Beth. Soon after John and Natalie started dating, Jerry proposed to Beth. And she said yes. We were all very surprised, not only because he asked her to marry him so soon after this rough patch they just went through, but also because they were together for only two years at this point, and Beth was only 25, which is quite young to be engaged. It seemed as if, as soon as John heard the news, he also wanted to do something drastic. After just four months of dating, Natalie moved in with him. She instantly started replacing all of his stuff with things that were more to her taste, up until the point where it feels like I’ve set foot into someone’s Pinterest board when I visit.
John and Natalie don’t really seem happy. Beth and Jerry have been planning their wedding for the past two years, but Beth tells me that sometimes, she is doubtful of what could have been between her and John. Of course, soon after admitting that to me, she rushes to add that it would never work between them, because she is super motivated and he is still doing the same job he started in and even started working less hours because he makes enough money to live comfortably. Natalie has been dropping hints about getting married, buying a house and having kids from the moment she moved in with John, and this September they’re going on a big road trip. He is going to propose. We all know, even though he didn’t outright tell us. If he chooses this path, this time next year he will have an expensive Pinterest wedding coming up, plus probably a mortgage and a baby.
Meanwhile, Beth and John keep doing fun stuff together, having drinks and working out. Natalie has started to give Beth some snark because of it. But when I talked to Natalie about our friend group, she only said super nice things about Beth, almost desperately so. I know Beth has her doubts. I know John has his doubts. But it seems like they go through with their respective Big Life Altering Plans as some weird game of Chicken. My fiancé and I just feel like there will be a moment in the future when the feelings they bottled up all come bursting out, and by that time there will probably be kids and other high stakes involved.”
