From hanging out with high-level mobsters to secretly birthing a daughter, these celebs
gave a whole new meaning to "behind the scenes secrets."
Whitney Houston's private life frequently became tabloid material, with the media focusing
on her substance abuse and problematic marriage.
However, Houston was able to keep a secret with her until she died, telling only a few
people who were very close to her.
Filmmaker Kevin Macdonald's endeavor to craft the documentary "Whitney" led him to an unsettling
familial revelation.
Houston's brother, Gary, made accusations against singer Dee Dee Warwick, their cousin,
asserting that he had been a victim of her molestation.
Disturbingly, Macdonald's findings also suggested that Warwick allegedly subjected Houston to
the same form of abuse.
Mary Jones, Houston's assistant and friend, told Macdonald's cameras of the day she learned
of the iconic singer's secret.
Jones recalled,
"She looked at me and said, 'Mary [...] I was molested at a young age too.'
She said, 'But it wasn't a man — it was a woman.'
She had tears in her eyes.
She says, 'Mommy don't know the things we went through.'"
Though Houston never spoke publicly about the alleged abuse, she might have once hinted
at it in an interview.
After Houston was asked what makes her angry, she said,
"Child abuse makes me angry [...] it bothers me that children, who are helpless, who depend
on adults for security and love, it just bothers me.
It makes me angry."
"So my feelings towards the press were so horrendously…
I was so indignant."
Among the occasional public and media scandals that peppered George Michael's life and career,
the narrative shifted after his passing, casting the singer in the light of a compassionate
guardian.
As detailed by the Associated Press, a trail of substantial donations had been made by
George Michael to various charitable causes, including Childline, Macmillan Cancer Support,
and the Terrence Higgins Trust — an HIV awareness organization.
Notably, these acts of generosity were veiled in secrecy by Michael himself.
He meticulously ensured that his involvement remained concealed from anyone beyond the
beneficiaries.
Esther Rantzen, founder of Childline, shared a particularly intriguing detail: Michael
directed all his royalties from one of his most prominent hits, "Jesus to a Child," and
more, to the organization.
Rantzen's words, conveyed to the Associated Press, affirmed that Michael's contributions
spanned millions of dollars over the years.
"As the Challenger climbed today, it carried an American woman astronaut, Sally Ride, into
space and into history."
In 1983, when Astronaut Sally Ride took her first of two trips out of our atmosphere,
she made history as the first American woman in space.
She became a huge presence in the NASA community, promoting education and space interest in
youths.
President Barack Obama even awarded her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom after her
death.
"As the first American woman in space, Sally didn't just break the stratospheric glass
ceiling, she blasted through it."
However, it wasn't until the sorrowful passing of Sally Ride in 2012 that she was acknowledged
as being gay.
In the span from 1982 to 1987, Ride was married to fellow astronaut Steven Hawley, but she
began a relationship with Tam O'Shaughnessy during that time and kept it secret from the
public.
When her obituary named Tam O'Shaughnessy, "her partner of 27 years," the public finally
discovered the truth about Ride's intensely private personal life.
Years after her passing, legal proceedings unveiled a previously undisclosed aspect of
Farrah Fawcett's life.
It was revealed that she had maintained communication and a romantic involvement with her college
sweetheart Greg Lott, reigniting their connection in 1998 and continuing it until her death
in 2009.
Fawcett and Lott attended the University of Texas and dated during their undergraduate
years.
Notably, Fawcett included Lott in her will, a testament to their enduring bond.
When Lott spoke to ABC News, he affirmed the nature of their relationship as "a loving,
consensual, one-on-one relationship."
Following her passing, rumors circulated of a love triangle involving her former partner
Ryan O'Neal and Lott.
O'Neal and Fawcett had an on-again, off-again relationship for three decades.
Lott claimed that O'Neal kept him from being with Fawcett during her final days.
Fawcett died after a battle with cancer at the age of 62.
Johnny Carson was purportedly engaged in a years-long affair with a woman from Texas,
whose identity remained undisclosed.
He maintained the relationship by visiting the state to check in on his investment in
a mall property there.
Henry Bushkin, Carson's attorney, wrote a tell-all book about Carson, highlighting the
late-night host's alleged love affair and womanizing.
Bushkin refers to Carson's supposed mistress as Miss Texas.
Bushkin's book alleges that Carson and his mistress met in 1974 and had an affair for
eight or nine years.
Despite the inclusion of the alleged mistress in Bushkin's book, the identity of Carson's
paramour was never revealed.
It's possible she's still in the world somewhere, but who she is remains a mystery.
Although Bushkin's book notes some of the meetings between Miss Texas and Carson, Carson's
second wife Joanne Copeland denied at least one of the anecdotes.
When Carson died in 2005, he was still married to his fourth wife.
Decades after Clark Gable's death in 1960, and shortly before her own, Loretta Young
admitted that her daughter Judy Lewis was conceived with the "Gone with the Wind" star.
This was confirmed in Young's authorized biography, titled "Forever Young: The Life, Loves, and
Enduring Faith of a Hollywood Legend," which was released just a few months after her passing.
"I'd like to extend my apologies for my conduct of last night."
"Oh but Red."
"I was very drunk."
The biography notes that Young became pregnant by Gable while they were filming "Call of
the Wild."
She then left public life and said she adopted her daughter after secretly birthing her.
Lewis herself published her suspicions that Gable was her father in her book, "Uncommon
Knowledge," but her mother never confirmed the longtime rumor.
When she was 31, Lewis confronted her mom about who her father was, and that was when
Young finally told her the truth.
Gable's only other child was John Clark Gable with his fifth wife, Kay Spreckles.
His son was born after his sudden death in November 1960.
Revealed in a biography after her death, Carrie Fisher had relationships with David Bowie
and Freddie Mercury in 1973 when she was just 17 years old.
Per Darwin Porter and Danforth Prince's unauthorized biography "Carrie Fisher & Debbie Reynolds:
Princess Leia & Unsinkable Tammy in Hell," Mercury and Bowie cheated on their partners
to be with Fisher at the time.
Fisher allegedly met the two rock stars through Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones when she
attended one of their parties with her mother Debbie Reynolds.
Porter is a longtime Hollywood insider who, among others, interviewed Joan Hackett before
her death.
Hackett was one of Fisher's closest friends and revealed to Porter some of the things
Fisher said about her time with Bowie.
Per Hackett, Fisher said of Bowie,
"I took drugs with him.
I have no one to blame but myself for my future addiction, but he certainly led me to the
water to drink."
"I would not wish the kind of drug problem that I have…
On someone…no."
Not only did Bing Crosby hang out with low-level mobsters, but he was also pals with some high-level
ones, including Jack "Machine Gun" McGurn, one of the alleged gunmen in Chicago's Valentine's
Day Massacre.
According to FBI documents, Crosby's ties to organized crime are long.
One of the reasons Crosby spent so much time with mobsters was simply because he wanted
someone to play golf with.
Biographer J. Roger Osterholm noted,
"Crosby just loved golf; he didn't care who he played with.
I stress that it was just very innocent — it was just to play golf."
Although some of the interactions may have been innocent, one of the FBI documents states
that Crosby had to pay $10,000 to eliminate a mob-related threat.
FBI documents dictate that there were several threats on Crosby's life by various members
of the organized crime syndicate.