Not like stars of different actuality exhibits, the Robertson clan of A&E’s Duck Dynasty — and now Duck Dynasty: The Revival — have owned as much as their present being scripted. As The New York Instances reported in 2012, Duck Dynasty producers would arrange conditions for the Robertsons to navigate in their very own fashion.
“I believe Willie [Robertson] coined it: guided actuality,” Jase Robertson informed the newspaper on the time. “However all of the stuff we are saying is — I don’t know if I can converse for everyone, however all of the stuff I say, I simply say what I usually say.”
However Duck Dynasty producers may have created successful actuality TV present primarily based on the Robertsons’ real-life drama. Listed below are 10 headline-making (and, in some circumstances, controversial) moments from the household’s time as actuality stars.
2013: Kay opens up about Phil’s infidelity.
In a 2013 testimonial video for the non secular group I Am Second, Kay Robertson divulged that husband Phil Robertson had been untrue previously. “I didn’t wish to consider it, he was working round on me,” she stated within the video. “And what I’d inform my boys on a regular basis is, ‘That’s not your daddy. That’s the satan in your daddy.’”
2013: Phil makes homophobic and racially insensitive feedback in {a magazine} interview.
Phil’s 2013 GQ interview bought him quickly suspended at A&E. He informed the journal that “gay habits” was sinful, that “gay offenders” wouldn’t “inherit the Kingdom of God,” and that homosexuality was “not proper.”
He additionally implied that Black individuals have been completely satisfied within the oppressive Jim Crow period, saying, “Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Had been they completely satisfied? They have been godly; they have been completely satisfied; nobody was singing the blues.”
A&E suspended Phil over the feedback, however amid stress from Duck Dynasty followers, allegations of anti-Christian bias, and the Robertson household’s insinuations that they wouldn’t movie the present with out Phil, the cable community blinked, reversing the suspension just a little over every week later, per The New York Instances.
Fifteen months later, Phil roused extra controversy when he criticized atheists in a speech by imagining a state of affairs during which an atheist household is raped and murdered. That point, as Time reported, A&E stayed silent.
2014: Jep suffers a seizure whereas searching.
Whereas searching deer with mates in Louisiana in 2014, Jep Robertson collapsed and began seizing. “I reached to get my bow and that’s sort of the final I bear in mind,” he later informed ABC Information. “I simply crumpled to the bottom, and so they stated I had a seizure for like 5 minutes. I believed I used to be a goner.”
It took EMTs round two hours to succeed in Jep’s distant location, and he was hospitalized in an ICU, hooked as much as a ventilator, and tied all the way down to his mattress. He additionally didn’t acknowledge his mom in the course of the hospitalization.
In the end, medical doctors weren’t certain what occurred to Jep. “They assume it was combine between meningitis and encephalitis,” he stated. “For the final month, I’ve mispronounced phrases, and I didn’t know why I did it, however I believe it was main as much as the seizure.”
2015: Lisa confesses to a previous affair in her and Al’s memoir.
Of their 2015 memoir, A New Season: A Robertson Household Love Story of Brokenness and Redemption, Lisa and Al Robertson revealed she as soon as had a 14-month affair that just about value them their marriage. In an interview with Us Weekly, Al mirrored on that chapter of their relationship, saying, “It was actually arduous. It was probably the most troublesome issues our household has ever gone by means of.”
2020: Willie has a drive-by-shooting scare.
In 2020, Willie reported that somebody shot eight to 10 bullets at his dwelling in West Monroe, Louisiana — together with one which went by means of a window — although nobody was dwelling on the time, per TMZ. A suspect named Daniel Dean King was later arrested and booked on a rely of felony assault by drive-by taking pictures and one rely of misdemeanor legal neglect of household. 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 legal case and his lawsuit haven’t been extensively publicized.
2020: Phil discovers he has a daughter.
Later that yr, Phil revealed on the household’s Unashamed podcast that he had not too long ago found he’d fathered a lady named Phyllis throughout an affair 45 years prior.
“It’s a fairly cool clarification of redemption, reconciliation, love,” he stated on the time, per Individuals. “Because it seems, 45 years, you’ve got a daughter that you simply don’t learn about, and he or she has a father she doesn’t learn about. Forty-five years, that doesn’t sound like very lengthy, however you say, that’s some time. So lastly, in any case these years, we come collectively.”
That daughter, Phyllis Robertson Thomas, wrote in a weblog submit on the time {that a} DNA take a look at informed her the person who raised her was not her organic father. And, she wrote, the take a look at led her “to a brand new and fantastic household and essentially the most optimistic end result one may think about.”
2021: Kay is hospitalized after her canine assaults her.
Phil informed Unashamed podcast listeners in 2021 that Kay had been hospitalized after her canine Bobo bit her. “I’m her high lip, [it] was cut up in two, a couple of quarter of an inch,” he recalled, per Individuals. “Her backside lip, over on the fitting aspect, there was only a chunk gone.”
Phil drove Kay to the hospital, the place she acquired a number of stitches. Kay had defined to Phil that she leaned in to kiss Bobo’s head, pondering the canine was awake, however Bobo was sleeping and lunged at her as a result of he was startled.
2022: Si undergoes lung surgical procedure.
Si Robertson needed to go below the knife in 2022, getting lung surgical procedure after growing respiration difficulties he stated resulted from smoking, persistent obstructive pulmonary illness, and Covid-19 issues, per Individuals. He later reassured followers in an Instagram submit, writing, “The doc says surgical procedure went nice. I’m able to get again at it, Jack!”
2025: Si is hospitalized after a searching accident.
In a 2025 episode of the Duck Name Room podcast, cohosts Justin Martin and Phillip McMillin revealed that Si had been hospitalized after an accident whereas searching in Arkansas, in accordance with Individuals. As Martin recounted, Si fell whereas getting out of a ship and hit his oxygen tank. Si was hospitalized, and whereas he didn’t endure damaged or bruised ribs, his blood oxygen stage was “actually low,” McMillan stated. Martin surmised that Si had suffered a panic assault after the autumn.
2025: Phil Robertson dies after sickness.
Phil died at age 79 in 2025, 5 months after his sons stated on the Unashamed podcast that the Robertson household patriarch was “actually struggling” with each early phases of Alzheimer’s illness and “some type of blood illness.” They stated that Phil had been coping with the latter for years and that it had “accelerated … inflicting issues together with his total physique.”
Following his dying, Phil’s household launched an announcement, saying, partly, “We have a good time at present that our father, husband, and grandfather, Phil Robertson, is now with the Lord.”