Reality TV Families With Huge Secrets

Bruce Jenner was a celebrated Olympian, and then the sole and often powerless patriarch of the Kardashian clan on Keeping Up with the Kardashians from 2007 to today. Viewers of the show started to notice Jenner's changing appearance: he began to grow out his hair, rocked long nails, and had a few tweaks to his face. Speculation began to peak when Jenner split from wife Kris in October 2013, and got a tracheal shave in 2014, which Jenner at the time dismissed to press as a pure vanity: "I just didn't like my trachea."

But there was more to Jenner's makeover than just the superficiality for which his famous family is often criticized: Jenner was beginning to transition into life as a woman. Jenner revealed the news in a 20/20 interview with Diane Sawyer, admitting that she's felt like a woman since she was a child and occasionally cross-dressed as an adult. Jenner unveiled her new name and identity as Caitlyn Jenner.

Anyone who ever watched Jon & Kate Plus 8 could see that Jon and Kate Gosselin's relationship was sometimes tense, but no one thought too much of it, because that many kids would make anyone a bit stressed or exhausted. Still, no one knew just how ugly it would get.

Jon Gosselin was accused of cheating on Kate, with Us Weekly reporting that one of his infidelities went down on Kate's 34th birthday in spring 2009. However, Jon insists the marriage was over way before any of this happened, revealing on VH1's Couples Therapy that his marriage with Kate was a business transaction, not a romance, and that their actual relationship had crumbled long before they officially split.

Hank Baskett seemed like the perfect Prince Charming for former Girls Next Door starlet and Playboy Bunny Kendra Wilkinson. That is, until it was found he allegedly cheated on the Kendra on Top matriarch with transgender model Ava Sabrina London when Wilkinson was eight months pregnant.

London claimed that Baskett contacted her after being particularly impressed with one of her YouTube videos and offered her $500 for some TLC, an allegation Baskett firmly denies. The former NFL star told People that he actually approached a couple in a supermarket asking where he could buy some marijuana and that the couple gave him what turned out to be London's address. He claims that when he showed up at London's home, she was making out with another transgender woman—and that the woman began pawing at Baskett. He claims that he froze in terror. Ho-kay.

Perhaps recognizing that both tales were pretty tall, Wilkinson flushed her wedding ring down the toilet and flipped out at Baskett, telling People she didn't know who or what to believe. Still, the couple managed to reconcile...and we may never know what (or, er, who) actually went down.

Real Housewives of New Jersey star Teresa Giudice's secrets were far darker and deeper than the mystery that is her amazing hairline. She and husband Joe Giudice were accused of hiding their fortunes in a bankruptcy filing in 2013, as well as not filing taxes in 2004 and 2008. The couple initially pleaded not guilty to the charges of fraud, but later changed their minds and pleaded guilty.

However, it didn't end there: the pair allegedly kept their finances clandestine by leaving glaring omissions in their probation reports, which were supposed to have complete transparency of where and how their money was earned and allocated. People reports that Judge Esther Salas believed that the Giudices didn't make errors on their probation reports, but that they deliberately tried hiding money from the government, and told them in court, "In the eye of the law, it doesn't matter who you are. There are consequences to pay." Those consequences for the Giudices? Teresa's 15 and Joe's 41 months behind bars.

Compared to their TLC colleagues the Duggars and the Thompsons, The Little Couple family dramas are, well, little. Still, that doesn't make them less traumatic. Patriarch Bill Klein revealed in his and wife Dr. Jen Arnold's book, Life Is Short (No Pun Intended): Love, Laughter, And Learning To Enjoy Every Moment, that he struggled with depression and contemplated suicide before hitting his stride as an adult. (Klein is four feet tall, the result of spondyloepiphyseal dysplasia, a rare, congenital bone disease.) "In college, I had reached the deepest [pit] of depression and that brought me to the brink," Klein told HuffPost Live. "Since then, things have turned around huge for me. My life has gotten better and better every single year. I've had bumps along the road every year to deal with, but that said, I hope I can teach my kids to do better than I did when it comes to dealing with people you can't control."

Patriarch Todd Chrisley of USA Network's Chrisley Knows Best may not have known best when it came to raising his son, Kyle Chrisley, because the guy has quite a few issues.

As Kyle's legal guardian, in January 2011, Todd entered Kyle into a rehabilitation center for substance abuse. Radar Online reports that Kyle stayed for three months, but that Todd didn't pay the facilities for Kyle's second and third months of his stay. Todd filed for bankruptcy soon after.

In 2013, Kyle's troubles continued when he was arrested for misdemeanor simple battery of a woman on April 17. He was placed on probation and after six months of good behavior, the case was dismissed. That wasn't the end of Kyle's courtroom woes, however, because his attorney sued Todd, who hired him to represent Kyle, for unpaid fees in March 2014.

Kyle became a father out of wedlock around January 2013, and his daughter Chloe has been featured on the show. Her mother, who Radar Online revealed to be Angela Victoria Johnson, and Kyle received mutual restraining orders against one another in October 2013 for undisclosed reasons. However, the pair appeared to have buried the hatchet at least somewhat: The Chrisleys filed a legitimation claim to establish child support and visitation rights for Kyle and were allowed to film with Chloe on the series.

No, not those Carters—Bey and Jay would never! We're talking about the family centered around House Of Carters: former Backstreet Boy Nick Carter, pop star brother Aaron, and sisters Bobbie Jean, Angel, and Leslie. The short-lived 2006 E! reality series focused on Nick's relationship with his siblings, but it glossed over the darker sides of the dysfunctional family, of which several members suffered from substance abuse problems. And unfortunately, not all of those problems were resolved: Leslie's struggles with addiction only ended when the "Like Wow" songstress passed away from an overdose in February 2012.

The Neiers were the family behind E!'s one-season series, Pretty Wild. The show's pilot had already been filmed when cast member Alexis Neiers was arrested for her role in the notorious Bling Ring (a group of burglars who allegedly stole from the homes of Rachel Bilson, Paris Hilton, Orlando Bloom, Lindsay Lohan, and more) in 2009. E! could easily have scrapped the series, especially after one particularly scathing reviewer called it "the worst show ever made." Instead, the network capitalized on the hype and covered Neiers' trial in the series.

That wasn't the big, potentially damaging secret Neiers' family kept close to their chests, though: it was Neiers' alleged drug addiction, which was unceremoniously leaked online through photos. In a 2011 interview with TheDirty.com, Neiers revealed she was addicted to heroin, as well as prescription drugs, and that all of her issues stemmed from sexual abuse she suffered as a child. She's since gone to rehab and become a drug counselor.

Former Real Housewives Of Orange County star Lynne Curtin's world was rocked in 2014 when she learned that her daughter, Alexa, then 22, turned to starring in pornographic films. Curtin told The National Enquirer, "When I found out Alexa became involved in porn I became physically ill." She added, "Alexa told me that she's no longer doing porn and only made a few movies last year. She thought she could make a few movies under an assumed name, get her nose and boobs redone, and nobody would ever recognize her. She's wrong. She now realizes this will follow her for the rest of her life thanks to the Internet."

We're not here to judge, but it's safe to assume that the familial relationships on Sister Wives are pretty complex and weird to begin with. Patriarch Kody Brown has four wives (Robyn, Christine, Meri, and Janelle) and 17 kids between them. Add to the mix that two of his wives, Janelle and Meri, were actually semi-related before they married Brown, and it gets really wonky. Radar Online reveals that Janelle Brown was previously married to a man named Adam Clark Barber...who just happens to be Meri Brown's brother. Janelle ended up meeting and falling in love with Kody Brown while she was still married to Barber, and they divorced in June 1990 after two years together. So to reiterate, Janelle fell in love with Kody Brown—her second husband—while she was still married to Brown's brother-in-law. Anyone else have a headache?