They say money can’t buy happiness. Money also can’t fix someone’s trashy personality. Good manners are free, but somehow these outrageously rich people don’t have them.
These stories are about the trashiest rich people who seem to think having money is a personality trait. Some people may not have a lot of money, but they have way more class than these wealthy folks. Content has been edited for clarity.
Bragging On Repeat
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“I had a girl sit next to me for one whole year during secondary school (we had assigned seats). She used to mope about how her parents still hadn’t finished building her a swimming pool in the garden (which she got for her birthday).
She also talked about her €2,000+ dog every day, all day.
Just things like this. For a whole year.”
Can’t Afford The Basics
“I work in restoration and I find myself in plenty of houses or condos worth millions of dollars around Atlanta with horrible plumbing or foundation issues.
I’d say 3 out of 5 times, the homeowner will mention the $10k couch imported from Europe or $100k artwork that has nothing to do with the job I’m working on. I’m only there to detach a toilet and remove some moldy drywall.
And I’d say 3 out of 5 times, it’s a job in Buckhead, GA. I can’t stand that giant shopping mall of a city.
“They’re Almost Entirely For Show”
“I was hired as a pianist for a social occasion held in a private mansion.
In the main living room (the centerpiece of the party), there were two Steinway concert grand pianos (Model D, 9′) – one on each end of the room, worth at least $150,000 – $180,000 apiece, and in pristine condition.
The host asked me to alternate between them, taking requests from each end of the room.
When I asked him if he and his wife had two concert grands because they played duets, he said, ‘Neither of us plays a note. They’re almost entirely for show.'”
Just Smile And Nod
“A guy I was meeting for business literally held up his Rolex and said, ‘How about that watch, huh?’
I couldn’t tell him I don’t really care for Rolex, so I smiled with polite levels of enthusiasm at best, and said, ‘Yes, that’s a lovely watch.’ The waitress came over and he asked her what she thought of it. Then he starts in with how much it cost. I was so grossed out.”
Exhibit A
“According to my tour guide in Paris, it’s very trashy in their culture to wear all designer clothing and making it obvious.
Right after he told my group this a couple walks by and they’re clearly wearing designer everything (the only thing I recognized were the woman’s heels cause they were Louis Vuitton’s). Our guide looked at them and then back at us with the most disgusted look on his face.”
He Literally Threw Money Away
“I was at a bus stop, this guy had change in his pocket, mostly loonies and toonies (I’m Canadian). He sighs to the person he is standing with said he has a bus pass and doesn’t need all this change so he just threw it on the ground. Must have been at least $10 in change.
Sure you can afford to literally throw $10 on the ground to avoid it weighing you down, but you’re still taking the bus.”
Not-So-Subtle Flash Of Wealth
“I was working in a coatcheck room. A gentleman was checking to make sure he had what he wanted from his coat before he gave it to me to place on a hanger.
He whipped out his Amex Black Card from his wallet and placed it in front of me while he continued to check his pockets.
There was no reason he needed to take out the card… he was just showing off.”
Empty Donations
“A prosperity preacher here in San Antonio pulls into a resort here in his Rolls Royce. My friend who works as a valet there was thinking he might get a decent tip.
He was handed a tiny New Testament Bible. This preacher constantly brags about how much he gives away.”
Rich Parents Are The Worse
“The other day I was out with my wife one town over, in a town known for being rich and snobby with a nickname for it revolving around that. She pointed to a girl that was about 7 and said look at her shoes. I said ‘So?’ Then she showed me how much they cost.
I learned what Balenciagas were and was flabbergasted someone would get $800 shoes for a kid that would outgrow them in 3 months.”
Treated Like Circus Monkeys
“I worked at a Cold Stone in high school. We went to a school that had a lot of kids from wealthy families. It was really fun for those pricks to come in and tip us just to make us sing so they could laugh at us. We knew trouble was coming when a squad of new BMWs would roll in to the parking lot. We eventually started telling them that it was a $20 minimum tip so at least we got something out of the humiliation. Man, that job sucked.”
Over The Top Wedding Gift
“Used to work as an inventory manager in Canada for a large adult beverage store.
We had an Indian guy come in and spend 100k on bottles of Johnny walker blue label for a wedding (gifts for all the guests?) like two palettes of this stuff in a pretty cramped warehouse. Worst part was he came back like two weeks later to return like 60k worth of em.”
“Like He Was Some Kinda Roman Emperor”
“There is a well known billionaire on the island I live. I go to a club the one day with a group of friends and he rocks up with his entourage that he was ‘treating.’ Staff members etc.
He gets to his hired out portion of the club with expensive drinks and weird snacks, plonks himself in his personal seat and promptly gets two of his Filipino girls to fan him with palm fronds.
I was gobsmacked. It seemed so dehumanizing. Like he was some kinda Roman emperor or something. Reminded me of those Asterix and Obelix comics.”
“It Doesn’t Matter Because I’m Not Poor”
“My college roommate’s boyfriend would purposely order too much food and then throw it away. He’d buy a large iced coffee, take two sips and then throw it away. Or order a feast of food from a trendy take out place, have a few bites and then toss it. At first I thought he was just wasteful but he caught my look of shock one day, smirked, and said, ‘It doesn’t matter because I’m not poor’.
I know you can’t give that food to people who need it. But that level of blatant wastefulness was distasteful.”
“More Money Than Taste”
“I went into Harrods recently on a trip to London (very expensive department store, literally just went to gawk at the prices), and most of the designer clothes are vile.
Highlights were a Gucci blazer that was a few thousand pounds, was aquamarine crushed velvet with golden ropes on the arms, and a denim tracksuit from some brand I’d never heard of that was covered in embroidered crowns, that actually had little bejeweled parts on them, and came with a matching baseball cap that had an actual crown on it.
The cap alone was upwards of £2k, didn’t want to know how much the whole outfit cost. I’ve heard the expression ‘More money than taste’ before, but this was like, the peak of it.”
Different Day, Different Jacket
“My classmate and friend in middle school used to say, all day, everyday about her 8 (yes, eight) GOLDEN RETRIEVER DOGS!
She would also state about how she just had ONLY 500 pesos to spend each week. (We’re in the Philippines so that’s a lot of money. To scale this, a whole meal for lunch would only be around 50-80 pesos.) She also had her maid cook food for her so I don’t know what she would spend that money on.
She would also say how she was very poor at some times, like, boy I could see that 500 bill in your wallet.
She would also come to school everyday with a different jacket on. Our school had us wear uniforms so we couldn’t really wear anything else aside from jackets. Like the longest period that she’s worn a jacket is probably 5 days.
She also bragged about going to Japan for the summer and would complain about how she still has to wait 3 months. I don’t even have the money to go out of country, she should be thankful.”
Matching Ferraris
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“I worked as a waiter at a restaurant. One morning for brunch, two Ferrari’s pulled up and parked in the handicapped zones: one grey, the other white. Two men walked out, one with a grey polo and grey shorts, the other in a white polo and white shorts. I could tell they were related, possibly brothers or cousins.
They sit down, and one goes, ‘Yeah, we’ll take one of everything on the brunch menu.’ After a three hour breakfast at a table big enough to fit 8 people, they bounce.
Later in the afternoon: two Porsche 911s pull up and park in the same handicapped spaces. One grey, the other white.
No. Freaking. Way. The dudes were back for dinner, and were wearing a different set of white and grey clothing. Like, ok, we get it, you’re all rich as balls.”
Designed To Flaunt
“We had a client for whom we were designing a house.
The grand piano had to be in a 3 sided glazed room so it could be seen from the park; the chandelier needed to be immediately behind a big window so it could be seen from the road; and the balcony had to be very wide so it looked big when seen from the road, even though that made it so narrow it wasn’t even 300mm deep, and was completely useless.”
He Can’t Share The Wealth
“My husband’s step-dad died a few years ago and had a few million dollars.
My husband and his sister didn’t get a dime.
His step brothers, though, got all of it. After the initial anger, one of them invited us to a party. Sure, time to bury the ax. They’ve been brothers since like 1st grade. One of them went on and on about how he has decided to become a country dancer DJ (what?) and bought himself a house. That we have never been invited to. While I work retail and currently 80k in medical debt. Prick.”
The Fine Meant Nothing To Her
“A girl who lived in my apartment building in college was the daughter of the CEO of a fortune 500 company.
She couldn’t be bothered to find a parking spot so she parked parallel across 3 perpendicular handicapped parking spots and proceeded to get 3 handicap violation parking tickets totaling over $1,000.”
Married For Wealth
“Two of my aunts would sit across from each other at Christmas dinner every year bragging about what their husbands got them.
Aunt 1: ‘My husband got me these gold and diamond earrings.’
Aunt 2: ‘Oh, that’s nice, my husband got me this diamond tennis bracelet.’
I swear Aunt 1 nearly divorced my uncle when Aunt 2 got a new car for Valentine’s Day one year! They were ridiculous!”
“I Like To See Them Fight’
“A 6th grade kid in my class would throw a handful of quarters on the ground near where poor kids were sitting during lunch so he could watch them scramble and fight for money to buy food for lunch.
It was such a confusing event to me. I was new to the school and didn’t know him very well. We were standing together after eating lunch, and he just casually tossed a handful of quarters onto a walkway where kids were sitting on benches. I still have a vivid memory of the noise of the coins falling on the concrete followed by pandemonium.
I remember turning to him and asking why he threw that money away, because WE could have bought additional milk or juice for OUR lunch. He gave me a strange look. For a moment I thought maybe it was an act of generosity on his part. He replied, ‘I like to see them fight.’ We stopped having lunch together.”
Money Can’t Buy Manners
“I work at a Starbucks and I have a regular who tried to gift me jewelry because he annoyed me into helping him move his shopping spree worth of stuff into his Uber while I was on my break.
This was after he started his conversation with me at the counter with bragging about not being able to take out $15k out of an ATM and that he doesn’t have this problem when he’s modeling in Milan.
Mind you, I’m a local fashion photographer and I shoot for a lot of local modeling agencies in my area and he was so incredibly unprofessional I couldn’t believe he was signed. Additionally, unprovoked, he asked whether I knew a photographer in a local college where I live. I happened to know her quite well in fact just the previous week I spent 6 hours in her studio modeling for her. She’s splendid and I asked her very plainly whether she even knew him and she explained to me he was ridiculously pushy and unprofessional she decided she just couldn’t work with him.”
The Little Prince
“I went to elementary school with a kid who constantly flexed his divorced parents money. Shamelessly. He didn’t try to pass it off as his own, he gave each of his parents clear and loud credit for everything. Looking back, I do believe there might have been some instances of the parents competing with each other via expensive gifts, cars, homes, and vacations. Notable examples, all in 3rd/4th grade:
-Took friends on ‘tours’ of his mom and dad’s houses to show off all the things.
-Brought a laptop to school. In the mid 90s. 3rd/4th grade.
-Bragged about having his nails manicured weekly.”
Lifestyles Of The Rich And Classless
“I went to a NYC design school with incredibly rich international kids. Like, ‘I shop for cars on the weekend for fun,’ rich. Here are a bunch of random stories of rich kids at my old school:
-This was a rumor, but apparently one girl hired someone to clean her dorm room every week.
-Knew a girl who was the sweetest and humblest creature on Earth but also stupid rich. She bought a dog and just casually wears Gucci blouses everyday.
-My ex boyfriend went to a $40,000 a year international private high school in Korea. His cheapest hoodie was $250 (I did not get to wear it). Spent most of his time and money on DSLR camera equipment and clothes. He had a collection of Bape hoodies and wouldn’t even wear some of them.
-The amount of girls who came to school in Ubers and cars kills me.
-The amount of students who spent $10-15,000 to outsource their homework (fashion students) also kills me.
-A classmate got a Tiffany ring from his boyfriend. We spent the whole class talking about whether or not he should get his boyfriend a $2,000 Hermes sweater in return.
-I saw a girl shove all her wet paint supplies into her Louis Vuitton bag.
-My freshman year roommate (a very lovely and sweet girl) used to go shopping in SoHo every weekend and her closet was stocked full of Madewell, Gucci, Valentino and many other name brands. One time her mac’s fan started to malfunction and instead of fixing it she just got a new mac. She moved out of the dorms before the first year was over to her own studio apartment and bought a dog.
Most of the rich kids I knew were super sweet and very friendly but boy did they live and party at another level.
The Unbelievable Reason For An Unsightly Mess
“My SO at the time’s rich friends stayed at his apartment during the summer for a weekend while there was a festival in town. He was away for the month, so in preparation I cleaned up the place and left them a nice note about how to get around the city and such.
About a week after they had stayed there, I went to the apartment just to check on things. I opened the front door and was immediately hit with a warm stench of rotting food. They had left a BOX of garbage in the middle of the living room/kitchen, and there were fruit flies all over the place. A BOX. They also left pillows and blankets on the floor, Unflushed pee in the toilet, and all of the lights on. I was so infuriated I called my SO and started asking him what the heck was up. We ended up finding out that they didn’t take the garbage out because they were scared that raccoons would eat the garbage.
They were scared that RACCOONS ON THE STREET WOULD EAT GARBAGE…. so instead they left it in a cardboard box for me to clean up and caused a fruit fly problem that lasted about 6 months.”
Can’t Buy A Good Personality
“My wife has a captain’s license for boats up to 60ft. She passed the tests fair and square including radio operator tests and all the other ones. She also finished her degree in economics and management shortly before the interview.
The interview guy, owner of the company, was thinking about making her his little side chick (dude was in his late 60s, she was in her mid 20s). He flashed Rolex etc. When nothing worked, he went over her CV and was amazed that she can sail and mentioned his yacht in Adriatic (Croatia).
This went on and on. When she did not budge and kept being professional (she was, after all, at an interview to be an HR manager) he went complete ‘nice guy.’ Discredited her license as ‘you can get those like candy in Croatia’ (and yes you can, but you can’t take on international waters with the Croatian papers he meant – I know since I used to sail on those). He saw her little Fiat 500 and discredited it as a beat up car and her degree as ‘the easiest to get.’
The dude had 3 failed marriages and few harassment lawsuits on his neck last time I checked. The yacht he flaunted was his brother’s and he borrowed it here and there, plus it was one of the more affordable models(in boat terms – it was the Fiat 500 of boats and not even his).
Fast forward a year or so (and this is how I learned about this story): we met him in Croatia (we usually charter boats) as he nearly hit us due to poor anchoring. The guy tried flaunting his smart watch (this was before smart watches were available, I am pretty sure it was Suunto X9) to which I just grunted that the watch sure tied him well onto the buoy. I was sick of that guy in like 5 minutes. I can’t imagine 2 hour interview with him especially if I was a woman. The interview happened in 2008-ish, we were on the yacht (dating at the time) in 2009 iirc.