15 Famous People With Surprisingly Dark Family Histories
![15 Famous People With Surprisingly Dark Family Histories](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/7/9/867279_320x180.jpg)
Strange things happen to people, especially in their heads. For instance, you're eating breakfast, reading the newspaper, when all of a sudden a piece of bacon falls on the page, and your mind turns to thoughts of bacon, or bacon-flavoured anything, for the rest of the day. You enjoy this list of interesting facts and oddities. You'd like to share them with other people, but they usually just look at you like you're crazy. It's like everyone else in the world is blind to the strange things that happen in their heads. You've decided to start a blog, called Confessions Of A Braindead Person, where you'll record the odd facts that come into your head. Maybe some other people will enjoy these same weird ideas as well. You enjoy this list of interesting facts and oddities. You'd like to share them with other people, but they usually just look at you like you're crazy. It's like everyone else in the world is blind to the strange things that happen in their heads. You've decided to start a blog, called Confessions Of A Braindead Person, where you'll record the odd facts that come into your head. Maybe some other people will enjoy these same weird ideas as well.
Jackie Chan
![Jackie Chan CRACKED.COM After being widowed in World War II, Chan's mother tried to sell her two daughters and then settled for just abandoning them, became an opium smuggler and legendary gambler, and married the cop who arrested her. They changed their names and moved to Hong Kong before Chan was born, so he didn't learn about any of this until a 2003 documentary uncovered the truth. Oh, his father was also a spy. At least he never faked his own death.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/9/6/867296.jpg)
Frances McDormand
![Frances McDormand CRACKED.COM McDormand was adopted by a pas- tor and his wife after she was aban- doned as a toddler by a white trash woman who went to her fa- ther's church. She was one of ар- proximately nine children fostered by the couple at some point, though she's not entirely sure. They take in strays, she explained. They also have nine cats.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/9/4/867294.jpg)
Cary Elwes
![Cary Elwes CRACKED.COM Elwes's maternal grandparents were so against the idea of their daughter marrying penniless aristocrat Dominick Elwes that they instituted wardship pro- ceedings and took out a restraining order against him, forcing the couple to run all over the world to find someone to marry them. They finally succeed- ed in Cuba, but then Castro revolutioned every- where, which puts a real damper on a honeymoon, forcing them again to flee in a raft. Dominick was briefly arresting, but they stayed married for 10 years, shortly after which he intentionally over- dosed on barbiturates after refusing to participate](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/9/5/867295.jpg)
Nancy Kerrigan
![Nancy Kerrigán CRACKED.COM In 2010, Kerrigan's brother, who had a history of substance abuse and violence, got into a fight with their father that ended with the elder Kerrigan's death from a heart attack and two and a half years in prison for his son. Say what you will about Tonya Harding's family, but none of their fights turned deadly.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/9/2/867292.jpg)
Mariah Carey
![Mariah Carey CRACKED.COM In her memoir, The Meaning of Mariah Carey, she alleged that her brother was an abusive drug dealer who once accepted money to kill someone (though the client apparently got impatient and did it themselves) and her sister once burned her with boiling hot tea, drugged her, and offered her up to her pimp boyfriend when she was 12. Her siblings have sued her over the book, but her sis- ter also claims their mother forced her to take part in satanic rituals, so she's maybe not the most reliable source. She was also once arrested for](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/9/0/867290.jpg)
Leighton Meester
![Leighton Meester CRACKED.COM Oh, yeah? says Leighton Meester, in our minds, because she was actually born in jail af- ter her parents were convicted of smuggling over 1,200 lbs. of weed from Jamaica. She said her family history made her very nonjudgmental and open-minded, a trait she had to suppress on Gossip Girl.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/9/1/867291.jpg)
Hope Solo
![Hope Solo CRACKED.COM The World Cup winner was con- ceived during a conjugal visit while her father was in prison for embezzlement. Не was later ar- rested for kidnapping her after her parents' divorce and then for murder, although that one turned out to have been a setup by a cop who knew an easy target when he saw one.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/9/3/867293.jpg)
Jonathan and Christopher Nolan
![Jonathan and Christopher Nolan CRACKED.COM The Nolan brothers have another brother who is arguably far more interesting. In 2010, Matthew Nolan was accused of kill- ing a financier in the course of attempting to extract money out of (i.e. torturing) him on behalf of a drug trafficker in Costa Rica, after which he made an elaborate but thwarted plan to escape from jail. In the end, the U.S. found insufficient evidence to extradite Nolan to Costa Rica to face the charges, so he's still out there. Just something to think about next time you consider trashing a Nolan movie.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/8/9/867289.jpg)
Dylan McDermott
![Dylan McDermott TO CRACKED.COM McDermott was born to a 15-year-old mom, so that's already not great, but then she started living with a gangster who had a habit of pointing guns at children and eventually killed her when McDermott was only five years old. Не went to live with his father and worked in his bar when he was 13, and after his father married Eve Ensler, writer of The Vagina Monologues, she adopted him and started writing plays for him to star in once he recovered from the whiplash of it all.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/8/8/867288.jpg)
Dennis Hopper
![Dennis Hopper CRACKED.COM During World War II, Hopper's fa- ther worked overseas as a spy, and the family even believed he'd been killed until he showed up one day after the war was over, explaining that the government had faked his death. Hopper blames the incident for his fa- mously paranoid behavior, and like, that's fair, man.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/8/6/867286.jpg)
Charlize Theron
![Charlize Theron CRACKED.COM Theron straight-up witnessed her mom kill her dad. The alcoholic, abusive Mr. Theron had come home in a rage one night when she was 15, shooting through the door of the room where she and her mother had barricaded them- selves until her mother, in a choice of words, ended the threat.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/8/7/867287.jpg)
Joaquin Phoenix
![Joaquin Phoenix CRACKED.COM Phoenix, on the other hand, was actually born into a cult after his parents joined the Children of God in 1970. Yes, the pro-incest, pro-pedophilia sex cult. To be fair, it's not like anyone advertises themselves as a sex cult, so as soon as the Phoenixes realized something was off about their new friends, they got out.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/8/4/867284.jpg)
Glenn Close
![Glenn Close CRACKED.COM When Close was seven, her parents joined the Moral Re-armament, then her dad took off to the Congo to become the personal physician of dictator Mobutu Sese Seko, leaving the rest of the family to live at the cult's head- quarters in Switzerland. She even per- formed with Up With People, the cult's musical group that performed at all those Super Bowls back when the half- time show was just a bathroom break.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/8/5/867285.jpg)
Kelsey Grammer
![Kelsey Grammer CRACKED.COM Kelsey Grammer may very well be cursed, and not just to star in increas- ingly convoluted comedies. His fa- ther was killed in a home invasion when Grammer was a child, his little sister was murdered seven years lat- er, and his two half-brothers died in a scuba diving accident five years after that, so you can hardly blame him for lashing out at that asshole dog.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/8/3/867283.jpg)
Woody Harrelson
![Woody Harrelsón GRAGKED.COM Harrelson's father, Charles, was not only a hitman, he was so good at it that he pulled in $250,000 for assassinating a judge who was about to preside over the trial of a drug kingpin. It earned him two life sentences (just to make double sure he never ended up back on the streets), and until his death in 2007, his appeals were paid for in part with his son's movie money, which is a further blow to anyone who paid to watch EDtv.](https://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/imageset/2/8/2/867282.jpg)