Michael Caine’s shocking family secret which was kept from him for almost 60 years

Michael Caine was almost 60 when he found out his mother was hiding a huge secret (Image: Getty)

Michael Caine was almost 60 years old when he discovered his mother was hiding a secret that would change his life.

The actor, now 91, only found out about the decades-long secret after his mother, Ellen Burchell, died in 1989.

Back in 2002, Caine appeared on Michael Parkinson's chat show, Parkinson, where he opened up about the secret his mother concealed from him, his younger brother Stanley and his father all of their lives.

The Dark Knight star explained how the truth was revealed when an article was being written on the state of mental health establishments in England.

While a reporter was chatting to residents at a facility, one of them claimed her boyfriend was Caine's brother.

"You see that man over there, that's Michael Caine's brother," she reportedly said.

Michael discovered his mother had another son (Image: Getty)

Caine was immediately contacted by the newspaper, who told him he had a secret brother and warned that the story would be running that weekend.

"I went to go see him, to see if he was alright," Caine told the veteran presenter.

The Hollywood star discovered that his mother had given birth to a child out of wedlock, six years before she married Caine's father, Maurice Joseph Micklewhite.

Caine told the Belfast Telegraph: "She obviously had an affair, and she didn't meet my father until... (later). And so she hid the boy

"What happened was, he was born okay, but medically he was treated badly and something went wrong. My mother kept her secret for 30 years. She went every week and visited him and none of us never knew. My dad knew nothing about this whatsoever."

Cain's mother visited David every week until she died (Image: Getty)

The boy, named David, was put into foster care and sadly became disabled after suffering an epileptic fit. Due to his condition, David was deemed mentally unwell and spent his years institutionalised in a hospital facility.

Every Monday during his childhood, Caine and his brother would visit their auntie while their mum went shopping. However, Caine realised this was a lie, and she was actually visiting her secret son every week until she died.

"I felt absolute amazement, how she fooled us all for 50 years, every Monday," Caine said. David learned he had a famous brother after Burchell gave him a photograph of Caine as Lieutenant Gonville Bromhead in 1964 war film Zulu.

Unfortunately, David passed away just 18 months after Caine got to know him.

In his autobiography, Caine wrote: "There was nothing Ma wouldn’t do for her boys – but perhaps that was also because there was one boy she hadn’t been able to do much for."