Recently, u/Katybee18 asked r/AskReddit, "People who went to private school, what was the best rich kid meltdown you’ve ever witnessed?" So we thought we'd share some of the responses.
1. "This one girl would always show off the new things her parents got her, then pick and choose who to share it with like it was a privilege. This one time they got her these heart shaped pastel-coloured chocolates. She waited until someone noticed them so she could tell the table about it, and then she took a bite. She immediately went to the bathroom and came back crying. It was soap."
2. "This was back in the '90s, so I don't recall exact car models."
"I went to a private school on scholarship with kids of major politicians and kids whose last names are brands you know. Head cheerleader, only passing classes because of who her daddy is, got a less flashy sports car for her 16th. She immediately crashes it, car totalled, but she's okay. Next day, she's hysterical in class because they made her drive... the Lexus. THE LEXUS."
3. "A kid threw a party with lots of drugs and lots of alcohol."
"I don't know why people think poor kids are the druggies. The rich kids have the money to buy the crazy drugs and unlimited alcohol. Parents are usually off in Europe.
Anyhow, at this party they all got so wasted and high they destroyed the multi-million dollar home. They threw something through the floor to ceiling picture window, the sofa ended up in the pool, someone did a shit in the fountain, etc, etc.
Think the kid was pissed because they got arrested, sent to rehab, grounded forever? Nope. They were furious they were only allowed to have the next party in the guest house. Parents didn't give a fuck as long as they didn't have to actually parent him."
4. "Not really a meltdown but a 'what the fuck'."
"My really close friend was actually pretty down to earth and normal for a kid whose family owns a castle in Europe. While on vacation in France, they forgot a necklace at the hotel. It wasn't a fancy necklace by their standards, but it had sentimental value. Her mom paid an assistant to fly back and get it. We live in the US.
Her mom also spent 20k on a crystal horse head statue for the foyer. It got to the home she wanted it in and she didn't like it. So it sat covered by a sheet in the garage for the next three years.
One time we were looking for the pool's storage closet to get some floaty pool toys and we found an entire fully stocked, sparkling clean bathroom they didn't know was there. Bringing the total to 11 bathrooms in the house."
5. "In junior high, we all had to wear uniforms. We hated them but everyone had to do it. Unless you were Greg who would wear a fake military uniform to school."
"His parents made it and put his dad's patches on it. Despite being a preteen, Greg had the 'you're disrespecting the US army' attitude and would bully people to show how tough he was. One day someone stole one of the patches off his uniform and he sat down on the ground crying in the middle of the classroom. It was so bad, the teacher made everyone stop what they were doing and open up all their desks to prove they didn't steal it. It was returned to him by the end of the day. (Also Greg would brag about the 'combat' his dad would go into). His dad was National Guard."
6. "Dude got gifted a new sports car from his dad. The dealership didn't have the colour he wanted so he had to wait two weeks. He threw a temper tantrum, screaming, cursing, and throwing things. Dead serious."
7. "I grew up in the late '90s, around the time the original Humvees became super popular."
"When I was 16, one of my classmates got a brand new one for his birthday. While showing off one Saturday afternoon, he drove it into a marsh. The marsh turned out to be deeper than he thought, and he had to bail out the driver’s side window while it slowly sank into sevenish feet of muck.
I heard later that cleaning and restoring it would’ve cost more than the vehicle was worth, so it was written off. Upon returning to school he got some well-deserved ribbing from his friends, threw a tantrum and stormed out of the lunchroom. There wasn’t much schadenfreude to enjoy, though. A week later, the little shit rolled up in a brand new Viper."
9. "A senior once got wasted and somehow ended up driving his car through a wall into the dining hall. Parents stormed into the school the next day with a lawyer and tried spinning the story that the 'school’s parking lot had too many turns on the roads' which is how his car ended up in the lunch line. Somehow this worked; the entire parking lot was rebuilt, and the family 'donated' a new dining hall that now has their name on it."
10. "Went to culinary school with a rich girl."
"We were joking on the train platform, about to head to her place and she left her designer purse on the platform with her phone, wallet, and translator (foreign student stuff). I was sitting there upset as HELL because the bag was like $2000, much less the important stuff inside. She was utterly unbothered, just cancelled her credit and bank cards when she got in. We were in class the next day and despite it being less than 18hrs since she lost her stuff, she had a new purse, wallet, phone, and TWO translators because one had a better microphone and one had Korean as the default setting. I never paid for her drinks again after that."
11. "When I was in high school, someone arranged for THOUSANDS of rose petals to be laid out on the school lawn spelling this girl's name to ask her out to prom. This was while a plane flew overhead, towing one of those banners asking the question. He got rejected and freaked the fuck out. Parents were beefing with one another, people were telling the girl to just go with him since his family spent so much money. He was clowned on relentlessly. It was pretty hilarious."
12. "My daughter was in first grade and this affluent child had a complete meltdown because they were going to take a motorcoach bus to a museum three hours away. She screamed over and over that 'only trashy poor people ride buses'. Her parents, of course, drove her."
13. "A rich kid I grew up with backed his Porsche onto a Honda Civic, and just walked away from it. He was just being a POS. Not even kidding, a week later he had a new Porsche. His dad has a garage full of them."
14. "I went to a private boarding school in Massachusetts. There were lots of rich kids. I was there on Financial Aid. For some reason the rich kids were really hung up on the idea that they were poor. A group of boys was discussing whose family was the least rich. The conversation went like this: 'Well my family only really owns two houses, our ski lodge is technically a condo,' 'Well we have the apartment in Manhattan, the loft in Brooklyn and then a beach house in Montauk... So that's like only one house'".
15. "On her 16th birthday, her parents bought her a brand new car and brought it to the school parking lot to surprise her with it after school. Now the bell rings and everybody makes our way towards the parking lot so this is in front of the whole school."
"She has an absolute screaming meltdown that the car was not purple. Again, a brand new car. Now it wasn't like a Mercedes or something it was just sort of a regular car, but a brand new car, 100% hers, the day she turned 16, and she loses her mind in front of the whole school screaming at her parents about how useless they are because the colour of the car was not purple."
16. "My wife taught at one for a long time, and had a lot of stories. My favourite was the girl who wouldn't be seen with the same purse two periods in a row and had a meltdown when she couldn't get to her locker between periods to switch out."
17. "Two of the kids at my school got into a fight over a parking place and one somehow drove his super lifted truck OVER THE HOOD of the other kids sports car. Fortunately, both of their parents bought them new vehicles so nobody learned any lessons."
H/T to u/Katybee18 and r/AskReddit for having the discussion!
Any of your own stories to add? Let us know in the comments below!
Additional thumbnail credits: Paramount Pictures