21 Real-Life Stories Of Unbelievable Incidents That Completely Destroyed Friend Groups

Sometimes, one mistake is all it takes to break even the strongest of bonds.

Jesse

• Published in Community
• September 25, 2024

Friendships are like carefully constructed Jenga towers. They take time, patience, and a whole lot of trust to build. But just one wrong move—one careless incident—and the entire structure can come crashing down. 

The thing is, friendship breakups can be just as painful as romantic ones—sometimes even more so. We’ve all heard those horror stories of friendships ending over something seemingly trivial or explosively dramatic.

It could be someone spilling the beans on a secret that wasn’t theirs to tell—or even a betrayal as devastating as when Scar throws Mufasa off a cliff in The Lion King. Either way, it’s amazing (and a little terrifying) how quickly things can fall apart.

Recently, a Reddit user asked the question that many of us may dread to answer: “What was the incident in your friend group?” The responses flooded in, and let’s just say they ranged from mildly shocking to downright jaw-dropping.

We’re talking about cheating scandals, hypocritical backstabbing, and jealousy-fueled fights that sound like they were pulled straight from a teen drama. 

So, if you’re feeling brave, scroll down and take a peek at these tales of friendship gone horribly wrong. You might find yourself feeling a little better about your own social circle—or maybe just a little more cautious about that one friend who’s always stirring the pot.

1. When the anti-kids advocate starts bringing her kid to every hangout. The hypocrisy.

One of the vocally 'anti-children during hangouts' women got pregnant, then brought her infant to every hangout and shushed anyone who spoke above a decibel. We reminded her that she was the one who gave other people s**t if they even hinted at bringing one of their kids.l and hangout time was adult time. She started sabotaging the group hangouts so we ousted her.

2. An internet romance that ended in handcuffs and 200 miles of regret

A friend of ours was talking to a girl on the internet. He went to meet her and got arrested. Turns out ... there was no girl; it was one of those undercover stings where officers act like underage kids to catch men speaking to children. ... He traveled almost 200 miles to meet this underage girl. It broke our friend group apart. Some tried to defend him, saying that it was entrapment; others, like me, cut all ties with him.

3. If your entire friend group plans a takedown of your relationship—you’d better listen

We broke up an engaged couple as a group. Basically staged an intervention with the groom. There was 12 of us at this meeting. She was a terrible, hateful person that was only marrying our friend for his earning potential. She was working to seperate him from his friends and family.

Folks, if literally your entire friend groups HATES your partner, you should listen to them.

He was pissed, but thankfully did some soul searching and talked with his parents and broke it off. He later married a fantastic woman that we all adore. They're probably the happiest couple in our friend group.

4. A Christmas party, some booze, and a misfired gun aimed at a friend?! Pure horror.

Accidental discharge of a firearm at a Christmas party after alcohol. I was the intended 'target'. The shooter got himself instead. For my health, I decided upon a change of cities and friend groups.

5. Well, that escalated quickly

Had a group of friends in high school, and I got married and had a child shortly after. My wife and I struggled a bit financially, and I was starting to become stressed out and depressed about it. Us guys got together, and I talked a bit about it to get it off my chest. The entire group came to the conclusion that the best way to fix the financial issues was to abandon my wife and daughter. And it wasn't joking sorta stuff either. They really meant it.

Needless to say, I dint associate with them anymore.

6. The tragic accident that silenced the entire friend group forever.

Weirdly enough, a car accident. Four friends were in the car when it got T-Boned. Totally the other driver's fault, she was going too fast into a blind hill. Our friend in the seat that was closest to the accident died from internal injuries. The last time we were all together was his funeral. We see each other around town now and again, still have mutual friends, we're all in a "Remembering (friend)" facebook group with his family. But for some reason we all just. Never got together again. No one talks about it. 

7. Imagine ghosting your own bridesmaids. Brutal!

Friend asks all of us to be bridesmaids in her wedding, lets us buy dresses and get them altered, then gets married in her backyard alone without telling any of us. We found out when the wedding pictures were posted on Facebook.

8. What started as a "harmless prank " ended in therapy and total friend group destruction

I was the youngest in my friend group at the time and looked up to my friends a lot, and I valued their opinion on me. They knew that, and all but two of them apparently thought it’d be funny to get together and make a long list of everything they found annoying/weird about me, then sent it to me assuming the other two would be on their side. They weren’t.

An entire relationship was broken apart, I started going to therapy for a while, and what remained of that group argued with each other until they all split. It’s been three years and that still stays on my mind.

9. ‘He said, she said’ turned friends into enemies. The scales eventually fell from their eyes—but not before friendships were wrecked beyond repair.

The girlfriend of my friend Bob announced to our group of friends that one of our friends (lets call him John) tried to kiss her in a party where Bob was not presented.

John denied that he did such thing and he said that it was actually her that tried to kiss him in the party, but when he refused she became mad at him and said that she would "destroy his life".

We didn't have any proof that either story was true, so half of our friend group decided to side with Bob and his girlfriend, while the rest of us sided with John. This created a divide in our group and things were weird for a while.

But around 2 months after this incident Bob found out that his girlfriend was f*****g a co-worker and broke up with her. Now, this still doesn't prove who was telling the truth regarding the attempt kiss in that party between her and John, but now everybody believed in John's version.

Unfortunately this caused big crack in our group that never fully healed. Despite his ex cheating on him with a co-worker, for some reason Bob still believed in her version of the story and never tried to make amends with John.

Also, the part of our group that initially believed in Bob's girlfriend story tried to apologize to John, but John never accepted their apologies. He was angry because some of our friends decided to believe in a unknown girl (she was Bob's girlfriend, but she was never part of our group; we knew very little about her) instead of believing him. Some of our friends that sided with her knew John for more than 10 years, yet they didn't believe in him.

So, in the end, she didn't destroy John's life like she promised, but she destroyed our group of friends. F**k that b***h.

10. For once, snitching wasn’t just allowed—it was required.

11. Perfect husband or perfect liar?

Our friend, the perfect husband with a perfect wife and a perfect child and a perfect harmonic relationship showing love to each other all the time had encounters with HUNDREDS of [escorts] all around country. He was travelling a lot with his car and had a second secret mobile phone. His wife found it and there were literally hundreds of phone numbers to [escorts]. He left, no contact for almost 2 years, and then he came back and they are back together like nothing happened. WTF? :D.

12. Seven friends, one audacious scandal—zero trust left.

My friend [slept with] my girlfriend inside my house, on my bed... This was the incident that separated us all, we were a group of friends of 7 people, including my old girlfriend.

13. When a group chat turns into a QAnon recruitment meeting, you know things have gone off the deep end.

We found out that a former friend in our circle had gone full QAnon and was in the January 6th riots. So that's *fun*.

14. One moment, he's your buddy—the next, he's claiming to be Jesus. You can’t make this stuff up

A former friend of the group had a mental breakdown, assaulted his sister, and declared himself the second coming of Jesus.

15. He faked his own death to escape the law…

Found out that a friend had faked his death and assumed a new identity. This was because he used to be a d**g dealer and needed to disappear to avoid arrest.

This all came up because his girlfriend at the time hit him and then called the cops. Once he was fingerprinted it all came up.

16. A love triangle disaster that spiraled into a smear campaign

Guy A (32) was in a long term relationship with Girl A (26).

Girl B (22) was friends with me (25). Girl B started sleeping with Guy A. Girl B had a drinking problem. Guy A would get Girl B drunk and sleep with her. I found out, lost my s**t. Guy A started a smear campaign against me and caused me to lose 90% of my friends.

Girl A came to me 2 years later and asked if Guy A had slept with Girl B. I said yes. Guy A, convinced Girl B to lie about the situation. Girl A cut contact with me. Eventually Girl A found out the truth several years later and dumped him. I never got an apology or closure.

17. The bond between friends can survive almost anything—except, apparently, one dog turning another friend’s dog into dinner.

A friend's dog [ended] and ate another friend's smaller dog.

18. Life happened, and he ghosted the entire friend group without warning

Continuation....

19. It’s not every day the groom has to disown his entire family to say, “I do.” Could this double as the ultimate love story?

Continuation....

20. When a secret crush became a public court case

I've had a group of buddies, 4 of us total, since high school. We all ended up in college together.

I brought a girl into the friend group. We went on a few informal dates, and would make out a little bit, but when summer came our freshman year of college, we cooled off. I got a girlfriend, she ended up fooling around with a guy back home. It was really no big deal. We still remained friends with no hard feelings.

One of my friends ended up hooking up with this girl regularly. Total FWB situation. I was glad. Now there was really no hard feelings or jealousy because I was with my girlfriend and she had my buddy to have her fun with.

We noticed our third friend ended up getting really distant and resentful. THREE YEARS LATER on a road trip, he gets drunk and confronts my buddy: He was madly in love with my friend, my buddy's FWB, and felt betrayed to find out my buddy was sleeping with her.

We basically brought this incident to "Friend Court". All four of us had a trial and really gave our friend a piece of our mind. He was way out of line to be so upset about a secret crush he told nobody about, and a crush on a girl he had no exclusive "dibs" on.

21. Truly devastating

One of our friends got hooked on d***s and ended up [ending] his ex wife, one of our other friends. It was devastating.

Friendships may take years to build, but it only takes one wrong move to destroy them. The stories shared here remind us of the fragile nature of these bonds and the importance of trust and respect.

Remember—it only takes only one incident to tear a group apart. Let’s just hope your friend circle never makes it onto a list like this one!

Jesse