Before The Big Bang Theory premiered in 2007, you wouldn’t have been able to point toward a character you both loved and hated. Once Sheldon Cooper made his debut, he became the poster boy for such a character.
If Sheldon was a real person, then he would easily be an awful guy to be around, because nobody wants someone so full of themselves and rude in their lives on a daily basis. If you think we’re being too hard on him, then check out these 10 worst things that Sheldon Cooper ever did.
Sabotaging Howard's Studies
After years of putting up with Sheldon over his insults at not having completed his doctorate, Howard decided to prove he was smart enough to have a PhD. He did so by enrolling in the classes Sheldon himself taught, but the latter took this as a form of challenge.
Rather than teach Howard like a real teacher, Sheldon took it upon himself to sabotage Howard’s studies by asking him difficult questions and making him seem dumb. Howard genuinely wanted to learn and get the doctorate, but Sheldon’s ego was too big and Howard never ended up getting his PhD.
Insulting Penny For Being Pregnant
In the series finale, Sheldon finally got his wish of winning the Nobel Prize, and this took him and the gang over to Stockholm to collect it. On the way, Sheldon found out Penny was pregnant; rather than be happy for her and Leonard, Sheldon would proceed to insult them for ruining his trip.
When Leonard confronted Sheldon about this, the latter would make it worse by claiming that any idiot could have a baby and that his Nobel Prize was a more noteworthy accomplishment. It took a grilling by Amy to make Sheldon realize the error of his ways, but it was made clear that Sheldon’s original point of view was that having a baby was really just an annoyance.
Not Speaking To His Own Brother For Over A Decade
Sheldon’s older brother showed up around the time of his wedding, and his absence for over a decade was explained as Sheldon willingly not speaking to him because of holding some misplaced resentment for thinking George was selfish after their father’s death.
In actuality, as George put it, it was Sheldon who was selfish as George had been the one to take care of the family once their father had died. Sheldon had been shielded from his mother’s grief because of George hiding that fact from him; yet Sheldon had instead figured the opposite and become estranged with his brother.
Be Vengeful Toward Amy After Their Break-Up
After Amy decided to end things between she and Sheldon in the eighth season finale, Sheldon would become bitter over having lost her and lashed out by being very nasty to her. Sheldon would take to ruining Amy’s time and basically embarrassing her in public.
It was a coping mechanism for him, sure, but that doesn’t cloud the fact that he made Amy cry on more than one occasion, all because he couldn’t understand how any woman would want to break up with him. Once Amy wanted Sheldon back, he was the one to turn her down this time.
Throwing Penny's Clothes Outside
Sheldon became embroiled in a feud with Penny when the latter made the mistake of touching his food. As usual, he took things way out of line and would invade Penny’s personal space just to antagonize her for an honest mistake.
This reached a breaking point where Sheldon took all of Penny’s clothes and tossed them onto the roof of the building across from theirs. Despite Penny reaching the end of her tether and asking for a truce, Sheldon would claim he would continue to make life difficult for her. She did finally get him to shut up be ratting him out to his mother, though.
Cutting Off Friendship With Tam For Lame Reasons
Even though he had just the one friend while growing up, Sheldon didn’t have any problems cutting him out of his life. It was a mystery as to what exactly Tam had done that had brought such ire from Sheldon, which eventually turned out to be another stupid reason.
As it was, Sheldon was sour with Tam for about two decades because Tam had decided to stay in their hometown to marry the girl he loved, while Sheldon had hoped he would join him in Pasadena. Rather than understand what his friend wanted, Sheldon instead didn’t speak to him for 20 years.
Insulting Religious Practices Regularly
As a firm believer in science, Sheldon was naturally an atheist who shunned the idea of god. The problem was that he was raised in a very religious household. Sheldon was forced to acquiesce with his mother’s demands to be religious where she felt was necessary, but this grew some annoyance in him that came out in very wrong ways.
When he became an adult, Sheldon would start insulting people with religious beliefs, constantly taking passages out of scripture out of context in order to prove how he was right and religion was wrong. If he was mature, Sheldon would just overlook and accept that people have their own beliefs and he shouldn't judge.
Leaving Raj Trapped With Rats
In order to conduct research on dark matter, Raj and Sheldon take their work underground to judge whether they could survive in a harsh environment like that. During their times of angst, Raj looked to console Sheldon by telling him about Hannah Montana — unfortunately, they were greeted by a bunch of scary rats.
Sheldon instantly took off to save himself and abandoned Raj. Not only that, he would seal Raj where he was and run back home with Amy. Raj would barely manage to escape, and when he confronted Sheldon about being a terrible friend, Sheldon didn’t have any regrets over what he did.
Undermining Whatever Leonard Has Accomplished
If a best friend is treated the way Sheldon treated Leonard, then we don’t have any need to have a best friend in our lives. Leonard was kept like a glorified butler for Sheldon, as he agreed to every demand the latter had.
Making it worse was how Sheldon had no respect for the work Leonard did in his profession, and constantly undermined his achievements. He would liken Leonard’s research to something that had previously been done, basically calling his best friend a hack. Even till the end, we didn’t see Sheldon ever admitting Leonard’s profession deserved respect.
Treating Howard Like Trash In General
You could make an entire season with the material there is of Sheldon treating Howard like a second class citizen. His go-to insult was of Howard’s profession as an engineer, feeling as if what Howard did was not worth doing. Then, Sheldon would constantly put Howard’s other achievements down, such as arguing that a monkey is as qualified as Howard to go to space.
Even subconsciously, Sheldon didn’t have a high opinion of Howard, as he termed Leonard, Raj, Penny, and Howard as his “three closest friends and one treasured acquaintance”; the latter of which turned out to be Howard himself, despite having known Sheldon for a decade by that point. During his bachelor party speech for Howard, Sheldon admitted he didn’t care what Howard’s future would be like, either.