TV romances are a cherished part of pop culture. Uncle Phil and Aunt Viv,
Jim and Pam, Cory and Topanga—we love them all. But some TV couples are downright unhealthy.
These are the most rotten romances in television history.
Buffy the Vampire Slayer’s Spike and Buffy epitomize toxicity. Long before they hook up,
Spike develops a creepy infatuation with Buffy after his longtime girlfriend and fellow vampire
Drusilla dumps him. When Buffy brutally rejects him, he gets Warren, evil nerd extraordinaire,
to create a creepy robot in her likeness. Making a sexbot of someone definitely isn't a healthy
way to deal with your feelings, Spike. Following her death and subsequent resurrection, she feels
lost and hooks up with Spike—a lot—to escape her hollowness, but ends up hating herself even more.
Sure, Spike cares for her in his own twisted way. But, when she finally comes to her senses and
breaks things off with him, he tries to assault her. In an attempt to earn her love and respect,
the vamp goes through hell to get a soul. While their time together during his soulless days
is toxic and horrible, he eventually becomes the man that Buffy deserves.
Miss Piggy and Kermit's 2015 breakup was a long time coming.
When they first graced the screen as a couple in the '70s on The Muppet Show, their toxic
back-and-forth was played for laughs — but boy, does it get brutal. Miss Piggy continuously
punches her beau, who's also her boss. Talk about an uncomfortable workplace dynamic.
When ABC revived the series in 2015, domestic abuse didn't play so funny anymore. In what was
both a brilliant marketing campaign and the right plot choice, the duo aired their messy
split as part of the new series. And who better to provide what was essentially couple's counseling
than Jimmy Kimmel? Although their romance remains dead, Miss Piggy and Kermit have worked together
professionally since their split, on projects like The Muppets and 2020's Muppets Now.
Demon Ruby shows up on Supernatural in season three,
quickly convincing Sam that she's on their side while Dean remains skeptical.
With Ruby’s original meat suit rotting somewhere, Sam makes her possess the comatose body of a woman
who just died. From there, they develop romantic feelings, partaking in typical couple stuff like
hooking up and telekinetically exorcising demons. When your girlfriend is force-feeding you demon
blood to supercharge said telekinesis, that should probably raise some red flags. Yet Sam refuses to
see what's right in front of him until the demon successfully coerces him into releasing Lucifer
from Hell. Ruby's response to manipulating her boyfriend for over a year? "I'm awesome!"
However, it isn't all bad. Actress Genevieve Cortese and Jared Padalecki fell in love during
the steamy throes of on-screen demon passion, and have since married and had multiple children.
It's not surprising that a show filmed in the '50s would have
a romanticized toxic marriage as the centerpiece.
At first glance, it seems like Ricky and Lucy from I Love Lucy have the perfect marriage. But,
you’re quickly confronted with the toxic roles women and men were expected to play in the '50s.
Ricky often scolds Lucy for wanting to spend time with him, and at one point,
she thinks he's trying to kill her. His response is to "give her a Mickey."
Imagine how messed up a relationship has to be for you to think your spouse is trying to kill you.
Imagine how much worse it is when his response to your suspicions is to drug you.
Small scenes like this add up throughout the show's run, creating a much different picture
of the supposedly happy couple for modern viewers to cringe at.
While Gilmore Girls' Dean Forester starts out as the super sweet boy next door,
things quickly take a turn after he and Rory begin dating. Everything Dean starts out loving
about Rory turns into an issue, including her academic studies, her relationship with her mom,
and her compassion. Plus, any time Rory dares to interact with another guy,
even in an educational setting, Dean flies into a possessive rage.
Dean tries to control every facet of Rory's life and blows up at her when
she doesn't return his "I love you" during their three-month anniversary.
“Rory, I love you...Rory?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you hear me?”
“Uh-uh”
Still, despite him dumping her on the spot, Rory still pines for him.
To make things more uncomfortable, Dean mutters Rory's name the night before his
rushed wedding to another woman. Even worse? Rory and Dean hook up during the marriage,
which ends with his belongings scattered on the lawn. The divorce leads to one last attempt to
rekindle their toxic relationship, which to be fair, should have been over years earlier.
Most toxic relationships don't end with the death of someone's entire family—but
then, most people aren't Teen Wolf's Derek Hale. His worst girlfriend, Kate Argent, enters
the picture after Derek's first love, Paige, dies from the werewolf bite he orchestrated.
Derek is riddled with guilt, which makes seducing him all too easy for Kate.
The 20-something werewolf hunter inserts herself into teenage Derek's life,
convincing him she loves him. Why? So she can burn his entire family alive, obviously.
When Derek is magically turned back into his 15-year-old self,
Kate ditches her murder plans and decides to use him to gain access to his family's vault instead.
Kate and Derek certainly weren't destined for wedding bells,
and hopefully the former hunter is ringing Hell's bells somewhere fiery in the afterlife.
Harley Quinn needs to stop calling the Joker Puddin' and throw a pudding
pie in his face instead. In her very first appearance in Batman: the Animated Series,
Mistah J roughly shoves Harley to the other side of his desk without a second thought — and his
abuse towards her only gets worse from there. The Joker moves from shoving her onto his desk
to throwing her out the window . And, he continually chips away at her confidence.
It's baffling that people still call the couple "relationship goals"
because they're anything but. Luckily, there's always Birds of Prey, which follows a version
of Harley who's finally cut the Joker out of her life, and the Harley Quinn series,
which sees her enter into a far more healthy relationship with Poison Ivy.
How do you doom a marriage before it even begins? Say your ex's name during
the wedding ceremony — it works out great for Ross on Friends.
“I Ross”
“Take thee, Emily”
“Take thee, Rachel”
Though they're often considered the TV darlings of the '90s, Ross and Rachel
bring out the nastiest sides of each other in their decade of will-they-or-won't-they drama.
Ross' long-time obsession with Rachel leads to his insecurity in their relationship,
causing him to question almost everything Rachel does when they're dating or even broken up. Since
he doesn't deem himself worthy of her, he begins to act unworthy of her. Funny how that works!
Rachel isn't without blame either: Their couple is fraught with jealousy
and manipulation on both ends. And to Ross' dismay, "being on a break" does not warrant
hooking up with someone just hours after pausing the relationship with your so-called dream girl.
Ross and Rachel are one of the most unsatisfying endgame pairs on TV.
What happens when you take a wannabe playboy and pair him with a clingy romantic on and off for
seven years? Nothing good. Whereas most toxic TV relationships have at least some redeeming
aspects, The Office's Ryan and Kelly are a hot mess from the jump.
Ryan only wants Kelly when she starts dating someone else,
yet he completely disregards the fact that Kelly wants a real, romantic relationship that ends
in wedding bells. Meanwhile, Kelly uses unknowing men to make Ryan jealous. A vicious cycle ensues,
in which Ryan sabotages those relationships, only to bail on her right after they hook up.
They're both also incredibly manipulative, whether we're talking about Kelly faking a pregnancy
or Ryan proposing to her when she finally moves on, fully admitting he'll probably change his
mind later. Finally, we see some character development when Kelly turns down Ryan's proposal.
She gets happily married to a sweet and loving doctor and leaves Scranton to start her life
with him. But because Kelly and Ryan can't seem to live apart, Ryan ditches his infant son and runs
away with Kelly in the series finale. Goodbye, character development. Hello, life of misery.
Gossip Girl’s Chuck and Blair take the cake for torment and betrayal: The couple just
can't quit each other, or their vicious games. To Chuck and Blair's credit, though, at least they
acknowledge that they're toxic together. They just don't care enough to throw in the towel.
Their pattern of dangerous mind games persists right to the very end of the show,
when they have a quickie wedding so Blair doesn't have to testify against Chuck.
There's nothing more romantic than a rushed wedding ceremony with sirens blaring in the
background, shortly after killing your own father. Manhattan's elite needs a lot of therapy.
All the best romances begin with someone turning their ex
in to the cops, right? Orange Is the New Black's Alex and Piper
are so afraid of being without each other that they throw each other into incarceration,
just so they don't have to be alone. Underneath the possessive behavior, jealousy, and frequent
cheating, the couple does love each other — but boy, do they make each other prove it.
So, how can a relationship survive after both partners have narc-ed on each other repeatedly? By
being physically intimate, obviously! When Piper is released from prison and Alex is still inside,
Alex tries to set Piper free when she's transferred to a prison further away.
But apparently, this doesn't take. The series' final moments see Piper
visiting Alex in her new digs, determined to make their prison marriage work. However,
the ending would be a lot more satisfactory if fans hadn't spent seven years
watching the couple make each other absolutely miserable in prison.
At first, it's easy to sympathize with
Lex Luthor's bad luck in the love department on Smallville.
His first wife uses him for his riches, after all. But nothing excuses what he does to Lana Lang.
Lex's laundry list of shady activity includes putting cameras in Lana's bedroom
when she moves into the Luthor mansion, cutting her off from friends and family,
and making sure she doesn't find out that Clark still loves her.
If that weren't bad enough, Lex drugs her into thinking she's pregnant. Given that
he becomes a mad scientist, it's not a complete stretch that he would pull something like this.
After playing doctor with her hormone levels, Lex tricks Lana into marrying him, using the fake
pregnancy to squash her hesitation. As his first wife tricked Lex into marriage with pheromones,
you'd think Lex would be a little less gung-ho about doing the same thing to someone
he supposedly cares about. Apparently not. It's hard to watch Lex go from the caring, empathetic
guy we see in season one to this monster. Really, Lex should probably just stop dating.
They say you should marry your best friend, but no one says you should marry your frenemy. Yet
Al and Peg Bundy act like they hate each other in almost every Married with Children episode.
Their toxic dynamic is played for laughs that probably seemed funnier in the '80s than they do
now. Between Peg's savage barbs about Al's hygiene and Al's continued mockery of Peg's unemployment,
one wonders: Do they even like each other?
Sure, they're possessive of each other, but that comes across more like ownership than love.
When Peg suspects Al of cheating on her, she disguises herself as an exotic dancer
at the club he frequents, making him fall in love with her in that disguise. The guy
can't even recognize his own wife at a dance club. But even worse than that?
He's cheating on his wife with ... his wife. This marriage is a mess and a half.
Check out one of our newest videos right here! Plus,
even more Looper videos about your favorite shows are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.