Unlike stars of other reality shows, the Robertson clan of A&E’s Duck Dynasty — and now Duck Dynasty: The Revival — have owned up to their show being scripted. As The New York Times reported in 2012, Duck Dynasty producers would set up situations for the Robertsons to navigate in their own style.

“I think Willie [Robertson] coined it: guided reality,” Jase Robertson told the newspaper at the time. “But all the stuff we say is — I don’t know if I can speak for everybody, but all the stuff I say, I just say what I normally say.”

But Duck Dynasty producers could have created a hit reality TV show based on the Robertsons’ real-life drama. Here are 10 headline-making (and, in some cases, controversial) moments from the family’s time as reality stars.

2013: Kay opens up about Phil’s infidelity.

In a 2013 testimonial video for the religious group I Am Second, Kay Robertson divulged that husband Phil Robertson had been unfaithful in the past. “I didn’t want to believe it, he was running around on me,” she said in the video. “And what I would tell my boys all the time is, ‘That’s not your daddy. That’s the devil in your daddy.’”

2013: Phil makes homophobic and racially insensitive comments in a magazine interview.

Phil’s 2013 GQ interview got him temporarily suspended at A&E. He told the magazine that “homosexual behavior” was sinful, that “homosexual offenders” wouldn’t “inherit the Kingdom of God,” and that homosexuality was “not right.”

He also implied that Black people were happy in the oppressive Jim Crow era, saying, “Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues.”

A&E suspended Phil over the comments, but amid pressure from Duck Dynasty fans, allegations of anti-Christian bias, and the Robertson family’s insinuations that they wouldn’t film the show without Phil, the cable network blinked, reversing the suspension a little over a week later, per The New York Times.

Fifteen months later, Phil roused more controversy when he criticized atheists in a speech by imagining a situation in which an atheist family is raped and murdered. That time, as Time reported, A&E stayed silent.

2014: Jep suffers a seizure while hunting.

While hunting deer with friends in Louisiana in 2014, Jep Robertson collapsed and started seizing. “I reached to get my bow and that’s kind of the last I remember,” he later told ABC News. “I just crumpled to the ground, and they said I had a seizure for like five minutes. I thought I was a goner.”

It took EMTs around two hours to reach Jep’s remote location, and he was hospitalized in an ICU, hooked up to a ventilator, and tied down to his bed. He also didn’t recognize his mother during the hospitalization.

Ultimately, doctors weren’t sure what happened to Jep. “They think it was mix between meningitis and encephalitis,” he said. “For the last month, I’ve mispronounced words, and I didn’t know why I did it, but I think it was leading up to the seizure.”

2015: Lisa confesses to a past affair in her and Al’s memoir.

In their 2015 memoir, A New Season: A Robertson Family Love Story of Brokenness and Redemption, Lisa and Al Robertson revealed she once had a 14-month affair that almost cost them their marriage. In an interview with Us Weekly, Al reflected on that chapter of their relationship, saying, “It was really hard. It was one of the most difficult things our family has ever gone through.”

2020: Willie has a drive-by-shooting scare.

In 2020, Willie reported that someone shot eight to 10 bullets at his home in West Monroe, Louisiana — including one that went through a window — though no one was home at the time, per TMZ. A suspect named Daniel Dean King was later arrested and booked on a count of felony assault by drive-by shooting and one count of misdemeanor criminal neglect of family. King later sued Willie and his son John Luke and daughter-in-law Mary Kate for defamation, as TMZ later reported. The outcomes of King’s criminal case and his lawsuit have not been widely publicized.

2020: Phil discovers he has a daughter.

Later that year, Phil revealed on the family’s Unashamed podcast that he had recently discovered he’d fathered a woman named Phyllis during an affair 45 years prior.

“It’s a pretty cool explanation of redemption, reconciliation, love,” he said at the time, per People. “As it turns out, 45 years, you have a daughter that you don’t know about, and she has a father she doesn’t know about. Forty-five years, that doesn’t sound like very long, but you say, that’s a while. So finally, after all those years, we come together.”

That daughter, Phyllis Robertson Thomas, wrote in a blog post at the time that a DNA test told her the man who raised her was not her biological father. And, she wrote, the test led her “to a new and wonderful family and the most positive outcome one could imagine.”

2021: Kay is hospitalized after her dog attacks her.

Phil told Unashamed podcast listeners in 2021 that Kay had been hospitalized after her dog Bobo bit her. “I’m looking at her top lip, [it] was split in two, about a quarter of an inch,” he recalled, per People. “Her bottom lip, over on the right side, there was just a chunk gone.”

Phil drove Kay to the hospital, where she received several stitches. Kay had explained to Phil that she leaned in to kiss Bobo’s head, thinking the dog was awake, but Bobo was sleeping and lunged at her because he was startled.

2022: Si undergoes lung surgery.

Si Robertson had to go under the knife in 2022, getting lung surgery after developing breathing difficulties he said resulted from smoking, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and Covid-19 complications, per People. He later reassured fans in an Instagram post, writing, “The doc says surgery went great. I’m ready to get back at it, Jack!”

2025: Si is hospitalized after a hunting accident.

In a 2025 episode of the Duck Call Room podcast, cohosts Justin Martin and Phillip McMillin revealed that Si had been hospitalized after an accident while hunting in Arkansas, according to People. As Martin recounted, Si fell while getting out of a boat and hit his oxygen tank. Si was hospitalized, and while he didn’t suffer broken or bruised ribs, his blood oxygen level was “really low,” McMillan said. Martin surmised that Si had suffered a panic attack after the fall.

2025: Phil Robertson dies after illness.

Phil died at age 79 in 2025, five months after his sons said on the Unashamed podcast that the Robertson family patriarch was “really struggling” with both early stages of Alzheimer’s disease and “some sort of blood disease.” They said that Phil had been dealing with the latter for years and that it had “accelerated … causing problems with his entire body.”

Following his death, Phil’s family released a statement, saying, in part, “We celebrate today that our father, husband, and grandfather, Phil Robertson, is now with the Lord.”