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15 TV Characters That Viewers Absolutely Loved To Hate

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So good at being bad.

Nazarii Verbitskiy

Entertainment - June 26th 2026, 17:00 GMT+2

Cory Matthews — 15. Cory Matthews

Cory Matthews from Boy Meets World was supposed to be the everyman hero, but somewhere along the way he became genuinely insufferable. He whined constantly, took Topanga completely for granted, and somehow always made every situation about himself. The show kept framing his selfishness as relatable quirks, which made it worse. Fans loved the world around him so much that they tolerated Cory, but tolerating a main character is its own kind of damnation. | © ABC

Walden Schmidt — 14. Walden Schmidt
Walden Schmidt arrived on Two and a Half Men like a billboard for how desperate the show had become after Charlie Sheen's exit. Ashton Kutcher played a billionaire tech bro so cartoonishly naive that every scene felt like a missed opportunity to actually be funny. The character had none of the mean, self-destructive edge that made the original dynamic work, which left audiences tolerating him rather than loving to hate him. He was annoying in the boring way, not the entertaining way. | © CBS

Archie Andrews — 13. Archie Andrews
Archie Andrews from Riverdale spent seven seasons being the guy every storyline happened around, despite being the least interesting person in every room. He started a boxing gym, joined the army, fought a bear, and somehow still felt like a placeholder while Jughead and Cheryl chewed up every scene around him. KJ Apa played him with genuine effort, but the writing kept handing Archie dramatic arcs that landed flat because nothing about him ever felt specific. Fans kept watching the show in spite of him, not because of him. | © The CW

Frank Mitchell from the UK soap Hollyoaks — 12. Frank Mitchell

Frank Mitchell from the UK soap Hollyoaks was specifically designed to make your skin crawl, and the writers absolutely delivered. He groomed, manipulated, and abused multiple characters over years, and the show never let him off the hook with a redemption arc. Seamus Power played him with such committed menace that watching him smile felt genuinely unsettling. When he finally got what was coming to him, the audience reaction was less relief and more something closer to savage satisfaction. | © Channel 4

Cropped Ted Mosby How I Met Your Mother 2005 — 11. Ted Mosby
Ted Mosby spent nine seasons on How I Met Your Mother explaining to his kids how he met their mother, but really he spent nine seasons making everything about himself. He romanticized women until they became symbols instead of people, then acted wounded when reality disagreed with his version of events. The show kept framing him as the romantic hero, which made it genuinely hard to watch everyone around him be more interesting, more funny, and more self-aware. By the finale, most people had spent years rooting for Marshall, Barney, or literally anyone else in that apartment. | © CBS

Kimmy Gibbler — 10. Kimmy Gibbler

Kimmy Gibbler on Full House was the neighbor nobody asked for and somehow never left. Andrea Barber played her as loud, oblivious, and completely immune to the Tanner family's obvious irritation. Every time she walked through that door uninvited, the audience groaned and laughed at the same time. She was annoying by design, and that was exactly the point. | © ABC

Richard Hendricks — 9. Richard Hendricks
Richard Hendricks from Silicon Valley starts as someone you root for completely, a nervous genius just trying to protect his algorithm from corporate vultures. Then season by season, his stubbornness, social blindness, and self-sabotage make him genuinely maddening to watch. He would rather blow up a deal than compromise even slightly, and the show keeps proving him both right and insufferable at the same time. Thomas Middleditch plays him so specifically that you never stop caring, even when you want to throw something at the screen. | © HBO

Zack Morris — 8. Zack Morris
Zack Morris spent four seasons on Saved by the Bell being the most openly manipulative teenager on Saturday morning television. He lied to his friends, schemed against his teachers, and paused the entire universe mid-plot to explain why his latest bad idea was actually genius. The character's self-serving logic was so shameless it became its own comedy. A whole generation grew up watching him get away with everything, and somehow rooted for him anyway. | © NBC

Cropped Rachel Berry Glee 2009 — 7. Rachel Berry
Rachel Berry from Glee spent six seasons being aggressively convinced she was the most talented person in any room. She probably was, which made it worse. Every solo she stole, every friendship she sabotaged for a callback, every tearful speech about her dreams landed somewhere between impressive and genuinely exhausting. Lea Michele played her so committed and so loud that hating Rachel felt like a full-time job the show practically assigned you. | © Fox

Lee Russell — 6. Lee Russell
Lee Russell from *Vice Principals* is one of those TV villains who makes you genuinely uncomfortable because he is too good at being awful. Danny McBride plays him as a man who smiles while plotting your destruction, petty and vicious in ways that feel uncomfortably real. Every scheme he runs feels less like cartoon evil and more like someone you actually knew in high school who never grew up. Hating him was easy. Enjoying it was the problem. | © HBO

Cropped Piper Chapman Orange Is the New Black 2013 — 5. Piper Chapman
Piper Chapman from Orange Is the New Black started as the audience's way into Litchfield. Then she became the most annoying person in it. Laura Prepon, Uzo Aduba, and Danielle Brooks were delivering raw, compelling performances around her while Piper was busy scheming over petty grudges and acting like her problems deserved the most screen time. By the final seasons, fans weren't rooting for her arc so much as tolerating it on the way to everyone else's. | © Netflix

Jim Halpert — 4. Jim Halpert
Jim Halpert from The Office spent nine seasons being framed as the cool, self-aware guy in the room. The problem is that the show asked viewers to root for someone who mocked his coworkers constantly, sabotaged Dwight for sport, and still expected everyone to see him as the good guy. By the later seasons, a pretty loud chunk of the audience had flipped on him completely, especially after he kept prioritizing his own startup over his wife and kids while acting wounded when anyone noticed. He never stopped making that face at the camera, even when he was clearly the one causing the damage. | © NBC

Cropped Nate Jacobs Euphoria 2019 — 3. Nate Jacobs
Nate Jacobs from Euphoria is the kind of villain who makes your skin crawl because he never fully tips into cartoonish evil. Jacob Elordi plays him as someone who weaponizes charm, fear, and his father's secrets in equal measure, always staying just controlled enough to be genuinely threatening. The audience hated him, but they also couldn't look away, which is exactly the uncomfortable place the show wanted everyone to sit. He is awful in ways that feel specific and real, and that specificity is what made him so hard to shake. | © HBO

The Governor from The Walking Dead — 2. The Governor
The Governor from The Walking Dead arrived looking almost reasonable, which made him so much worse. He ran a functioning community, gave speeches about protection, and then kept severed heads in fish tanks for fun. David Morrissey played him with this unsettling calmness that made every scene feel like standing near something about to go off. The hatred he earned felt personal, not just plot-level, because the show let you believe in him just long enough to make the betrayal sting. | © AMC

King Joffrey — 1. King Joffrey
King Joffrey from Game of Thrones was genuinely difficult to watch, and that was entirely the point. Jack Gleeson played him as a child with unlimited power and zero empathy, which turned out to be one of the most unsettling combinations television had seen in years. Every scene where Joffrey smiled meant someone was about to suffer. Gleeson was so good at making audiences despise him that he reportedly retired from acting partly because the hatred felt too real. | © HBO

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The best villains and most infuriating characters aren't the ones you want gone, they're the ones you can't wait to see more of. These 15 TV characters drove audiences up the wall in all the right ways, the kind you boo at the screen while secretly hoping they never leave.

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The best villains and most infuriating characters aren't the ones you want gone, they're the ones you can't wait to see more of. These 15 TV characters drove audiences up the wall in all the right ways, the kind you boo at the screen while secretly hoping they never leave.