Have you ever had a bad gut feeling about a (generally well-liked) person that ended up being totally justified? If so, what happened?

Yeah, I really didn't like my buddy's girlfriend. I could see right through her, and she was changing by buddy for the worse. She was convincing him that his image was shit, and it really damaged his confidence. He'd change his outward appearance for her, dropped his entire lifestyle, but she had abandonment issues so wasn't ever happy with any partner.
Turns out she was a narcissist, like bonafide. What went down next:
She graduates college with a STEM degree, while having freeloaded in his house her entire senior year (his mortgage)
She breaks up and moves out of nowhere, this several months after she insisted on all the other roommates get kicked out to "take it to the next level"
He goes suicidal, makes two attempts, but finds another lost soul to have a fling with, which starts to bring him out of the depression
Ex-girlfriend finds out about new fling, drops by house at 1am after having left the club (driving drunk, I'll add)
Makes a huge scene out front of his house, I'm there for my "shift" on suicide watch, she ends up kicking me in my fucking kidney while I was squatting and smoking a cig
He ends up depressed again, 3rd suicide attempt and he doesn't survive
I'm a pall bearer at 25 for my best friend since 8th grade
Fuck that bitch.
- I'm so sorry for your loss. I can't begin to imagine what kind of horrible person does that kind of shit to anyone, let alone someone who struggled so much with their mental health.
  It sounds like you were a great friend to him.
- Oh my God that’s fucked up. I’m sorry for your loss. I hope there is comeuppance here somewhere.
- Sorry for your loss
- Final word being removed really drives the story home
- Fuck. Thats enough internet for tonight. I wish guys would just buy a guybrator for < $200 and lose the retarded damaged bitches.
- She breaks up and leaves him, he goes suicidal?
  Sounds abusive and manipulative.
  Ex girl shows up drunk and makes a scene, and friend goes into a full depression?
  Your friend was not rational, no disrespect intended. Can't blame the girl.
  
  No, he wasn't rational. As evidenced by getting suicidal over a relatively short lived romance (a couple years?). It was years in the making though, becoming co-dependent on this girl, who really didn't give a shit about him at all.
  When they first split, we could tell he was slipping into some type of psychosis. I immediately got his parents involved, along with the rest of his support network. We talked him into starting up therapy, let his direct boss know what was up, got some HR paperwork rolling so he wouldn't lose his job trying to get mental help (two 3-day suicide watches on a psych ward).
  Before the night of her assaulting me, I was actually on talking terms with her, and even enlisted her in trying to get my buddy's head back on straight. He was calling her 5-10 times a day, leaving "take me back I'll do anything" type messages. We had asked her to please not answer or call back anymore, letting her know she hadn't done anything wrong, and it was him that was sick.
  But she wouldn't let it go, she would periodically answer the phone, and talk to him hours on end. Giving him hope that they'd get back together. And then ignore him for several days. We even offered to pay her and for her to go see his therapist, so she could get professional advice on how to helpfully deal with such an obsessed and mentally unwell individual; she refused. But what she didn't refuse, was to keep answering that damn phone and edging him along. She seemed to like the control, and in a fucked up kind of way, the attention.
  In court, when she was being held to account for her assault on me, she claimed that she had attacked me in order to get him to hate her. She said she figured I was the person he next loved the most, and she wanted him to gravitate back into my sphere, away from her. But that's not what she was screaming that night. She called the other girl a slut (the other girl locked inside the house), and how my friend was a piece of shit for having cheated(!), and that the other girl would leave his sorry ass too.
  She lied right there in court, stared me straight in the eyes after too, brushing away her fake tears. She was convince that everybody had bought her story, and that she was the victim in it all.
  And then the prosecutor called into evidence a recording I gave to him when he had first contacted me as the affected victim in the case. The recording? A voicemail that she had left me within the first several visceral days after my best friend's suicide. When the funeral was still being arranged -- and it was a big one, my buddy had so many loved ones in his life given his age -- my buddy's mom asked me to call the ex and let her know she didn't want anything to do with her, and that she wasn't welcome at the funeral.
  Her response to all that in the voicemail, having been forbidden from the funeral, now being played in front of everyone in the courtroom?:
  You fucking piece of shit, I don't want to be at that goddamned funeral anyway, no way I want to see his dead bloated body! He was a piece of shit just like you, good riddance and I hope he's in hell!
  Those fake tears burned right off her ugly face real quick, you could see her grinding her teeth, turning beet red with seething anger. Finally, the bitch had to shut the fuck up.
  So yes, you're right, he was not rational. But I respectfully disagree that there isn't at least some degree of blame that she deserves.
  (And sorry if it sounds like I'm dumping on you, I'm not meaning to. It's been a while since I've been able to vent about it all. Such drama, it occasionally bubbles up, will always be a tattoo on my soul.)
  
  Unless you have been with someone like that you don't get it. They break you down until you feel worthless so when they leave you have nothing.
  I dated someone like that took me months to get to the point where I could even accept a pity date. Was so convinced that I was hideous.

My great aunt's husband. I had a bad feeling about him the moment I met him when I was a kid. Turns out he was a paedophile that got two of his granddaughters pregnant and was sent to prison. He died a few years ago and the family held a wake for him and I had to explain why I wanted nothing to do with him. WTF.
- A wake was still held for him?! Ya no shit you didn't want to go.
- What is a wake?
  
  More or less a celebration of someones' life that is less formal than a typical funeral.
  https://www.funeralpartners.co.uk/help-advice/after-a-funeral/what-is-a-funeral-wake/

Yes. Customer. Was clearly smooth talking con man others aspire to be. No one else believed me. Or questioned how he was going to set up the kind of construction operation he claimed to run. Literally weeks after moving to the area.
Boss took the bait. Even introduced the guy to other friends and customers. Guy promised them all a bunch of work but needed down payments for materials. Vanished about a month after the checks cleared.

Met a guy at a house party that everyone seemed to like. Had some interesting stories, but he mostly came off as a self obsessed dickhead.
He later became pretty noteworthy in the industry he worked in.
10 years on from when I met him, turns out he’s at best a serial sexual assaulter, and a serial rapist at worst.

Russell Brand and the recent revelations that he's abusive and probably a rapist.
He gave me danger vibes from the very beginning, all the way back to 2008ish. I was actually surprised when it broke news this year; I had assumed he'd been caught way earlier and was already through the "apologizes" / stays off social media for 6 months / comes back "enlightened" / media forgets about his crimes cycle.
- Nation Could Have Sworn Russell Brand Was Already Convicted Sex Offender
  
  Wow, been a while since there was an Onion article targeted so squarely for me. What a fit.
- I mean this could have been a clue https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Russell_Brand_Show_prank_calls

There was this guy I met at the dog park who talked nicely to everybody, especially to the ladies. He would be the kind to always greet you, offered to share his snacks. He seemed to always be at the center of the conversation.
He tended to orbit around my now gf and for a long time he forcefully sticked with us, all good there at the beginning. But as soon as I started going out with her his behavior changed. Instead of being a direct ass to me he tried to monopolize my girlfriend's attention, being overly attentive, stomping over me when I was talking, always trying to dominate the conversation.
Now, his true color started to show when I confronted him when he was trying to impose his lifestyle on others.
He attempted to get a mutual friend to drink with him, which is by no means bad, the problem was than this mutual friend was a recorying alcoholic.
He tried to coherse her by using social pressure, saying that you should enjoy (which is true, but he doesn't get a say in how anyone else "enjoy" THEIR LIVES), but I standed against it. The few times we drank together I was able to keep her from overdrinking, sooooo he started to invite her without acquaitances.
Long story short:
He got our mutual friund hooked again to the point of losing her job.
I untintentionally got the best of him, such as "women are less value than the historical sites they destroy in feminist rallies" and regarding his own girlfriend who doesn't want to have kids "she is to young to know that". He once asked this out of nowhere "how old do you think they are?", whes referring to two teenagers who were clearly 15 at best.
It turns out that majority of the dog owners dislike this guy. But, no one ever said anything because we all thought he was well liked in the cammunity.
- There's a thing called the Abilene paradox. A family is hanging out when one of the suggests having dinner in Abilene. It's a hot day and a long drive, but nobody wants to be left out, so they all agree. After a terrible dinner, they all reveal their frustrations at the event when the person who suggested it notes that it was the first thing they thought of, as they thought everyone else was bored.
  Thus, everyone sits in wonder at how they all convinced each other to do something nobody among them wanted to do.
  It's fun how often that includes hanging out with someone.
  
  Sounds like a guy who used to be at my D&D table.
  
  Abilene paradox doesn't exist. That's a failure of communication and a benign dishonesty with each other. State you're bored and check the room before making everyone go on a journey. Get to an understanding before making plans.

My mom did, it was Jared Fogle while he was visiting the elementary school she works at a few years before the arrest, we all know what happened.
- Well no I don’t
  
  As the other person said, he's a pedophile, and that's... putting it nicely. The dude was a nightmare that abused his fame and status to abuse children all over the world.
  There's a documentary on ... I think curiosity stream and probably some other platforms that's worth a watch if you're into true crime. Totally crazy
  
  He's a pedophile.
  
  Well, he likes to abuse people, especially children.
  https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BDBi4Ogrru0&pp=ygUTRHJlYWRlZCBqYXJlZCBmb2dsZQ%3D%3D
  
  You might know him as Subway's former pedophile spokesman. Kinda surprised none of the other replies mentioned Subway. Like the sandwich shop, if you're too young to know the reference. He lost a bunch of weight, supposedly by eating subway sandwiches (South Park had another take but didn't predict what was really going on), so subway hired him for commercials and a tour. They later regretted this.

Of course. I’ll just speak generally instead of specific stories.
Judging people based on their charisma alone is a terrible approach. Many likable people are great, but others just say what they know other people want to hear. People pleasers that will always choose the popular option, not the “right” one… And some people can be very talented at using manipulative tactics to gain support even though they spread a lot of pain. The classic popular bully.
The reverse can also be true. Some extremely uncharismatic/unpopular people are amazing at heart. And can be trusted to do what’s right even if it’s unpopular.
That’s why it’s best to not make knee-jerk or immediate judgements. Listen to your gut, pay attention to details, and try not to let the opinion of others influence your opinions or decisions too much.
- Thanks for your opinion, ChatGPT.
  
  Just writing from the heart. I take that as a major compliment though! Thanks! Might help you to know that I write for a living.

I knew the guy vaguely. He was a relative by marriage to a friend of mine so I had seen him. He applied for work where I was and his story didn't really add up. If you read between the lines it sounded like he was fired for stealing. He was very extroverted and could crack a joke so people liked him. I didn't.
I recommended not hiring the guy but we did. Stole stuff, picked fights, was lazy, did this "game" where he would take something of his coworkers and hide it. Eventually mouthed off to our main supplier, right in front of all the underlyings. So yeah no raw materials and the plant shutdown for a week.

About 10 years ago we lived near this family that were friends with our family. The couple was a little older than my wife and I but not by much. The wife and my wife liked to hang out, but whenever I went over to their house, it seemed like the husband was very flirtatious with my wife. No huge red flags or anything, just joking a lot and laughing a lot and seeming interested. I didn't really say anything to my wife, but I always had a bad feeling about the dude. I think she thought he was just being friendly. We moved away from there for many years but ended up moving back about 3 years ago. We didn't really live in exactly the same area, so my wife and the other wife chatted from time to time, but didn't really hang out. She did call my wife though when her husband started cheating on her with someone from work. He apparently was very open about flirting with other women and when she found out he wouldn't stop seeing/sleeping with the girl from work. She told my wife that he told her he always regretted that they had as many kids as they did (4) and that it was her fault. So, turns out all my bad feelings about this dude ended up being true. The really crazy part is that the dudes wife still won't leave him, even though he is basically openly cheating at this point. It's sad. He's such a loser.
- His wife is also a loser.

The new boyfriend of a friend of mine.
She thought, he's super nice, then told me he was jealous of me, because I'm a man befriended with a woman. When we met, he seemed constantly worried about not seeming beta, weak or somehow "unmanly". She thought he's just a bit nervous.
Yeah, turned out he was absolutely ready to rape her, stalked her after she broke up and sent her "presents" over two years. Really really pathetic little guy.

My sister's ex. Though a lot of her friends had the feeling, he sure as hell charmed her and my parents. Dude was a manipulative cokehead who stole thousands from her. She's fine now but fuck that guy.

Yea, one was arrested for sodomizing his adopted child. The other one was arrested for showing himself to a minor
- Holy shit

no my gut feelings are always wrong, some free advice for you scammers out there
- If someone is nice that doesn't know you they want something. Which most of the time is fine, maybe all they want is to not feel lonely. If it isnt crystal clear that what they want is that or something like that be on guard. People aren't very open with strangers passes the age of 4 years old.
  If someone wants to include you in any kinda deception get out of the situation.
  Be aware of any attempt to size you up. Are they trying to figure out how much money you have, are you the type to go to the cops, do you have any easy blackmail routes. "Oh what kinda work do you do?" Is a classic.
  It all comes down to sex money or loyalty. Anyone trying to go after you wants some combo of the three. The person who is not attracted to you, doesn't care what fancy toys you have, and will only tell you about their religion/cult/whathaveyou if you ask about it is the one you can trust.
  Lastly "let me talk it over with my wife" is pretty much going to get you out anything. Anyone being honest will be fine with that answer to pretty much any suggestion. If I invite a friend to say a BBQ I want him to bring his wife if I am going to try to sell you the Eiffle Tower I know it is just that much work scamming two vs one.

My mother in laws friend was a roided out prison guard who had zero empathy. He was very kind to people but just could not understand when anyone had a hard time with anything. I fixed his computer and he refused to pay me because it looked easy so he figured I wasn't really working.
When his wife asked for a divorce he strangled her so hard it broke her neck. He then held her under water in the bath tub for almost an hour just to be sure. Then he tried to end himself by jumping off the second story of their house but survived with a back injury.
MIL actually showed up to court as a character witness. He spends most if his time these days in "protective custody" because a lot of the other inmates know him from when he was a guard. We still get letters from him and he is still a dickhead.
- My dad was a security guard at a supermax prison. He said, "You have to deal with the nastiest and vile people you've ever thought of... And then there's the inmates."
  
  Your dad sounds cool asf

Deployed to Iraq cross leveled to a different unit. One of the staff sargents at this unit, who I didn't know at all, just had a super creepy touch children type look and vibe about him. I knew some shit was going to go down with this guy.
There were two privates, both super young like 18-19, married to each other in this unit. Turns out he slept with the wife and it came out right as we were getting into country.
The Army pretty much straight disappeared that Staff Sgt. I didn't see him again for like 8 months. Not even around the billeting. I wish I had said something before all that went down. ¯(ツ)/¯
- Got it, if you get drafted, fuck someone's wife, you get desk duty instead of patrol.
  
  Thank you for your service

Quite the contrary. I had a good feeling about the principal of my sons new school, and he was part of the reason why we went for the school.
He didn't last another year there. First he was not seen for months, and now we know that he was convicted for possession of child porn.
Until then I generally had a feeling that I could assess people quite well. Now, that feeling is shattered.

Two actually...
Jian Ghomeshi - Something about him told me he's trying way too hard to project the feel of cool, smooth, groovy and suave. Just had a creepy feeling about the guy the whole time, was waiting for the news basically. Then it came out that he was violently assaulting and raping women.
Kevin Spacey - Having grown up with sociopaths, I could see right through the guy. Trying and not doing a great job of acting human, in the way somebody who's not really human thinks humans act.
- I didn't save it but about a year or so before the news broke about him I saw a reddit comment of a guy claiming to have seen him (Spacey) in a South East Asian with drunk boys, boys boys not 20 year olds, in a private booth at a restaurant in a redlight district.
  Guy freaked out when people asked him more questions and seemed very unnerved by the whole thing.
  
  If you've got Hollywood money and you're not out of the closet, you wouldn't be doing that in public, not even in SE Asia. He'd get mobbed. The boys would be visiting his hotel room / rented villa.
- I never watched Ghomeshi's program and never had a personal opinion about him one way or the other prior to the allegations, but I think it's important to be clear and accurate when making these statements (because inaccuracies weaken/discredit the whole). While it came out Ghomeshi is a misogynist who engaged in sexual harassment and enjoys violence against women, it also came out at trial that the women conspired together beforehand when they made the allegations of rape against them. Creep? Yes. Misogynist? Yes. Stay away from him? Definitely. Rapist? Not proven.
  
  Totally fair point, and it's actually something I align with. We often judge people based on spotty information delivered by questionable news reports and it's not fair to make a condemnation of somebody based on those.
  However, my distrust of his character was appropriate, when the news came out it confirmed that guy was not what he was presenting as his image.

Yupp and it still messes with my head. A friend's friend was hanging out with our group for the first time and he was super chill but the way he spoke just seemed really off and I couldn't explain it. As we ended the night his friend was gonna take off by himself as my buddy wanted to chill for the night. The next morning the guys sister calls my buddy and tells him that her brother hung himself. I know logically i couldn't have known but my gut told me he shouldn't have been leaving without my buddy. No drugs or alcohol were involved that night we were all 100% sober....

My ex. I had weird feeling from the start, because they wanted to spent time with me 24/7. my ex was so superkind, helpful and always giving me compliments and i quess i got hooked on that cause they felt different being overly nice. I will not share whole the story, but when i was with them, i started to notice patterns. So shortly my ex sexually abused/raped when i was sleeping, this happened atleast 3 times. And their excuse was sorry, thought you were sleeping. They were pressing to do other stuff too, i quess you can probably quess, but if i declined i got silent treatments and they were moody and annoyed. When my ex was pressuring to do videos on Pornhub(i declined ofc) i started realise that this is so fuckin sick, i started to have insomnia, depression, getting angry and started to have social anxety. Relationship ended when i discovered that they were cheating +6months with their friend without protection ofc, and all their excuses were blaming me for being moody, angry and suicidal, yeah after all that i think not many women will be sane. They werent sorry or take accountability. I wasted 10 years because i was too stupid to realise that that wasnt love. I still feel like a idiot. Therapy has been huge help for me and i know that it will take years to recover. I shouldve listened that gut feeling because i ended be in relationship with a sosiopath or something similar.
- You're not stupid, anybody can fall victim to a manipulation. Everyone has some sort of weak spot that can be exploited. It's not helpful to play the blame game but if you're gonna blame anyone it would be the narcissist that you described. The other thing to remember is that we cannot change the past, therefore no point worrying about it. The important thing is happening right now. Good luck sweetie.
  
  Thank you. I feel like i did the right choice when i left and now i am taking a new chapter in my life. Cheers to new beginnings 🥳

Bill Cosby comes to mind. Creepy and not at all funny. Never understood the appeal.
- If you can, seek out the docuseries "we need to talk about Cosby". As someone born in the mid 80s I never got the appeal because the Simpsons were the replacement TV family to supersede that generation of sitcom. The docuseries does a great job of giving the viewer the full picture and the first episode is mostly around why he was so successful. Honestly I got it. They played some of his stand-up bits and I found myself laughing despite knowing where the story was going. When he got the Cosby show, it was a revolution at the time to have an all black upper middle class family on TV, hence where you get the America's dad (in its time). It's all the more impactful when you spend the following episodes digging into his depravity.
- The Jello pudding thing was weird. The “boys pull up your pants” was also.
  
  The pants thing was due to the trend of sagging. I don't mean just riding low around your hips, i mean down to the knees having to hold it while you walk.

Elon Musk when he first became well known and my entire friend circle and work colleagues worshipped him.
What happened? Elon Musk.

This just happened last week: we have a new cooperation partner since this summer. One of the employees who is in regular contact with us is always super nice and friendly to everyone. Everybody likes her. It was a bit too much for me and I told my boss that I had a bad feeling about her.
Last week, based on a rumor, she tried to turn a long-time colleague against us. I'll spare you the details. The important thing was: I was right, she is a snake.

Orion Acaba from the first campaign of Critical Role. Granted I was many years late but the chat shown in the video really seemed to like him.
- I totally agree. There were some moments where I felt he was a little off, but ignored them because I wasn't familiar with the group dynamic. Also got some real sketch vibes from Brian Foster, and wasn't surprised to find out he was a slime ball pile of shit. The way the crew responded to his style of "humor" really made me feel like they weren't super comfortable with him.
  
  Brian is my most recent answer to this question. Everyone’s so thoughtful and empathetic in that group, and then there was he with nothing but one-upping and sarcasm.

Usually just small things, with coworkers and how long they'll last. We get contractors that come into our group every so often when a need arises. Unfortunately, it's hard for contractors to get hired on full time unless they get lucky and a FT position opens up. It takes weeks/months for someone to get good at the job we do, even just understanding the full process takes awhile for someone to get their head around. You can usually tell pretty early on how quickly somebody is catching on and whether they're going to make it.
There's some people that come along who are extremely talented, charming, and/or intelligent that I know would be an absolute perfect fit for our group, 99% of the time those people will just find a job somewhere else. They're great workers and they're not going to wait around if another opportunity comes, which they're usually smart/connected/talented enough to see plenty of opportunities come up. The other, unqualified people who we sometimes get stuck with, inevitably make some sort of simple, yet expensive error that gets them let go. It's like seeing an easily predictable scenario, but being powerless to do anything about it.

Every last worker in the social services industry I've ever met. Well-liked by everyone except the people who find themselves at the other end of their decisions, these people having their livelihoods shattered by them when the money is needed. They all look, sound, and act like mass-produced clones of each other, almost like they vet each other for similarities to themselves. Sad part is I could've become one given my education.
- So sorry you’ve never met the good ones.

Absolutely, my shitbag-dar is on point. I have too many to choose from. How about the "good Christian" guy in college who ended up body shaming a friend if mine into becoming overweight because he preferred overweight women, then cheating on her and beating her? Or the piece of shit who played off that he was so nice that got a new car and proceeded to try to get every girl in the friend group to go for a ride... Yeah, you guessed it, he tried to assault multiple women in that new car of his. Yeah, the list goes on and on. Honestly, I have met more than enough openly shitty people who had more good in them than so many of the well liked people.

Not me but a friend I used to play World of Warcraft with.
The (at the time) #1 ranked progression guild in the world was Method. They had a player called Josh who used to stream frequently. My friend used to hate him and said he looked like the kind of guy that would spend his days on the dark web trawling for CP.
Around the time said friend had left to try out for the navy, Josh was implicated in a sexual harassment and child grooming scandal which caused Method to implode as an organisation. Most of their players abandoned ship and formed Echo in its place, in the full knowledge that everyone was covering up allegations against him, not just senior leadership.
When he got back (failed the fitness test) he was like "Called it. I knew he was a paedophile."