It's natural to wonder what happened to the ~popular kids~ from your school. Did they go on to become rich and famous, or did they peak in high school? Well, recently a Reddit user asked, "What happened to the 'cool kids' after high school after you graduated?" and there were some veeerrrryy interesting replies. Here are the stories* of what became of 32 popular kids.
*We also used responses from these two threads.
Note: There are mentions of domestic violence and suicide.
1. "Only one popular kid seems to be just as insufferable as she was in high school, but she didn’t even peak in high school, she peaked in like eighth grade. I say that because she posts stories of her drinking in her car — even once of her actually drinking while driving. The next day, she posted an ankle monitor and said she could either do time or lose her license for like six years. I replied to her story, 'I think you should go with the license suspension,' because I don’t like the idea of her driving anymore, LOL. I don't know what she chose, though."
"She posted a video of her toddler with the caption 'he gonna rob your kid in the future' and a pic with him saying 'lil badass will fuck up all your kids.' So, like, yeah."
2. "I’m a guy but I work with 95% women as an OB-GYN. One of the cool girls from high school that I had a huge crush on came into our triage area. She was 33 weeks pregnant and having an active placental abruption from cocaine use. I didn’t even recognize her. She literally asked me the next day after we saved her and her baby’s life if we went to high school together. I was like, 'Mmmmm, no, I don’t think so,' and as soon as I said the words, I remembered who she was. Very strange feeling. Life is the weirdest thing of all."
3. "Well, two of them murdered somebody our senior year and spent 10 years in prison, but when they were let out, everybody proceeded to continue to kiss their butts, throw them parties, buy them season tickets behind home plate — there was even a collection at stores to send them on a cruise when they got out. They both got married, one got a divorce, they have big houses, etc. Nobody really seems to care that they killed a young girl anymore."
"Most of the rest actually struggle more because they don't have so many other people bankrolling their lives. Many are single parents or on third or fourth marriages. A few are grandparents (we are in our early 40s). A handful became comfortably middle class, but it is VERY rare.
"Honestly, it's pretty depressing. Most people I grew up with did nothing with their lives and continue to struggle with addiction in one form or another. I wasn't popular, but one of my best friends was (she was a year younger, so that was possible, LOL). She's a felon now. I miss her so much, but the person I cared about barely exists."
4. "These two jocks at my school were really popular but didn't actually have many friends other than each other. The administration loved them, but all the students except a couple of other football players hated their guts. They used to beat up my little brother until one of them got expelled and then moved. After he left, the guy who stayed killed himself, and then it came out that they had been secretly dating each other since junior high."
"The guy who moved recently friended me on Facebook, and he seems all right."
5. "A popular girl who used to bully me for being half Black had like four kids with a Black man, which I find interesting. I hope she had the maturity and grace to change her views now that she has biracial children of her own."
6. "The popular kid turned out to be marriage material. I was an exchange student at a US high school, and I had a crush on a boy but never told him because he was so popular (homecoming king). Thirteen years later, we met at Oktoberfest in Germany and he told me he really liked me in high school but never told me because he thought I was just hanging out with him to improve my English. We got married."
7. "Big shot star of the football team, arguably the most popular kid in school. All the girls threw themselves at him. He continued his life of privilege with a full-ride football scholarship. A few months into college, he was in his apartment alone, choked on an apple, and died."
8. "Well, most turned out well enough; there was one guy who didn't. He was the 'hot guy' of the class. Girls loved him because he was gorgeous...blah, blah, blah. Anyhow, he wound up having a kid and eventually came out as gay. Apparently he broadcast it to the wrong person: an older man who tried to have his way with him. He strangled the man, discarded his body in a ravine, and was later arrested for it. From what I understand, the man came onto him forcefully on a back road. He's now doing time for the murder. I actually got along really well with the guy. It's unfortunate that this happened to him, especially considering he has a daughter. Funny how life can change in a short amount of time. I know he's technically a murderer, but I wish him all the best."
9. "Our varsity cheerleader and football star high school sweethearts married and had two kids. On social media, they're the perfect family — all beautiful, smiling, happy people. But one of my best friends lived next door to them, and he would regularly beat her up. Several times, she hid at my friend's house while he was looking for her, or to call the police. They are still together and seen as a success story. I didn't see them at the class reunion because no one invited me (I was bullied a lot), but I guess they were just loving on each other and so perfect that everyone was impressed."
10. "I was bullied really, really badly in high school. When I was given the option to nope out my junior year to take college-level classes at our local branch of university, I never looked back. I'm not in contact with anyone from high school, other than following a few of my former classmates on Facebook. Two interesting stories: One of the girls who bullied me the most — she spread rumors that I, a geeky Harry Potter fan, was into witchcraft — reached out a few years ago on Facebook and apologized. She seemed really sincere and has contacted me a few times about hanging out."
"I thought she did it as part of a 12-step program or something, but apparently she had become a yogi and was on a higher plane of existence, I guess.
"Another girl, who pretended to be nice to your face but was just a jerk behind your back, we ended up in the psych ward together last year. It's a relatively small town, so they had people with addiction problems and people with other psychiatric disorders grouped together. I was in there for a suicide attempt; she was there for heroin addiction. She spent a lot of her time asking others how best to shoot up when she got out.
"I don't know, man. It's so weird when you have such a clear picture of who people are, and you find out they're not who you thought they were after all."
11. "One became a high school sports coach for girls' teams. After years of widespread rumors that he was doing illicit things with the teenage girls he worked with, he was finally arrested when he ended up getting a 15-year-old on a basketball team pregnant."
"Another went on to become a very successful college professor and has had several books published.
"One dropped out of our senior year of high school after she had triplets (!), but she married a rich man and never had to work. She's the envy of the rest of us because her kids are all grown up now and out of the house, so she travels the world for fun and models beautiful, expensive clothes on Instagram.
"The last one I know of married one of the cool girls in my class. Both of them came from rich families. He went right into law school and she started popping out babies like a good, traditional wife, and to support this, their families bought them a large house, a vacation house on the beach, and multiple cars so they never had to worry about a thing while he was in school. He is now a successful lawyer with his own firm, and they are absolutely loaded. She has never worked a day in her life but instead tries to push MLM schemes on her friends and brags about being a successful 'girl boss.' She also makes videos about how to be successful at work; they're honestly low-key comedy because it's painfully obvious she's never actually had a job."
12. "He became a cop in our hometown, crashed his patrol car, and faked a shooting to cover the crash, which spurred a countywide manhunt for the nonexistent shooter. He was caught and fired, was possibly going to be charged, and then killed himself the following Thanksgiving."
13. "A popular guy I knew from high school was a semipopular musician for a few years in my home city before stabbing someone in a club and then fleeing to Jamaica. Last I knew, he was still on the run."
14. "He’s still an asshole. I ran into him while on a date with a woman and he just sat down at our table, and while I was in the bathroom, he tried to convince my date to leave with him before I got back. At our 10-year reunion, he talked shit to all the guys there and tried to get multiple married women to leave with him, including my kid's mom, whom I had just started dating, who told him to fuck off. Fuck that guy."
15. "He's still a cool guy...calmed down a lot (he was a huge clown) and had a kid. Works a lot, plays in a metal band that is wildly popular in Europe (we are in the US), especially Scandinavia. Will always buy me a drink because we traded pictures of dragons once in Earth Science, and I gave him a lighter once. He didn't have some great downfall or anything because he wasn't an asshole."
16. "Moved to the Midwest, got engaged, and was generally happy. Murdered an 18-year-old with his friend for fun. He's now serving a life sentence."
17. "The popular kid bullied me in elementary school, but when we got to middle school and high school, we ended up bonding and becoming good friends. He transferred to another high school eventually, and we grew more distant but talked from time to time — mostly about politics. We couldn't have been more different, but I'll always have a connection to him. I give him credit for bringing me out of my shell in middle school and building me a social life. He died in September of last year from a heroin overdose. He was set to go to law school in November to become a family lawyer, which he told me last time we spoke and was very excited about because we were both children of divorce. Rest in peace, Nick, the whole town misses you every day."
18. "One of the most popular and successful girls in my high school would always get great grades, she'd land the lead in every school play, she came from a talented and wealthy family, her brother was a guitar prodigy, and she was both student president and valedictorian. And she was really nice, too. She was one of those people you weren't jealous of because of her success; you aspired to be like her. I friended a mutual friend on Facebook several years ago and friended the popular girl, too. Turns out she tried to kill herself and now spends a lot of her time advocating for suicide awareness and treatment of depression. It really opened my eyes. I guess that kind of pressure can drive even the most talented people to the brink."
19. "There was this kid nicknamed 'GTA' because he would constantly boast about his allegedly wild antics, which usually escalated from party binges to carjacking, picking random fights, and getting a free pass from sex workers. He was kind of a dick but a stand-up guy at the same time, so he was well liked anyway. Besides, he would do some wild shit every once in a while to prove himself, so everyone either didn't mind his bullshit or truly believed him. This was when we were 17 or so. Well, lo and fucking behold, about a year after graduation, I read about his death in the paper. Turns out he had the brilliant idea of stealing a car at a party that turned out to belong to a cartel hotshot girlfriend. He and another friend were found dead on a hill with 23 bullets in his body and the word 'ratas' carved on his stomach. He died as he lived."
20. "One of the most popular girls in my graduating class got pregnant at the very end of senior year. She wasn’t very nice but wasn’t the worst. My best friend was good friends with her in middle school but said that once they came to our high school, she dropped my friend like a hot potato in favor of fitting in with the popular crowd. Her loss. She had her baby boy and got engaged to the dad, but they ended up breaking up. Some years later, she actually ended up working at our high school doing some sort of admin work. She got caught having sex with her former English teacher and was fired."
21. "The most popular girl came out a couple of years ago as a lesbian. She's super gorgeous, and I had always wondered why she never dated any of the other equally gorgeous popular guys at school who wanted her. She was always a cool chick and is doing really well now, with her own hair salon."
22. "One of them made it halfway through American Idol before being eliminated, and another went on to dance as a background dancer on Dancing With the Stars. I only knew because I saw them on TV."
23. "She got pregnant at age 17, and during the pregnancy, the father cheated on her with her 'best friend.' Ten years later, she has a great job and is a single mom of a happy daughter."
24. "They all stayed friends. They all stayed in our small, rundown hometown. They all got married and divorced by age 23. They all have ugly little children with their drug-addicted exes. They all have trashy tattoos and still wear lifeguard sweatshirts and leggings from 2016 as if it’s a cute outfit. They still think the one gross diner in our hometown is a nice restaurant. I live in a major city; I work in marketing for a really successful company; I am considering going back to school for my master's, paid for by my company. I live in the nicest part of my city, and my boyfriend and I are saving to buy a house for our gorgeous dog. I take my little siblings on vacation every summer and have since I was in college. The comparison is wonderful, and it does absolutely keep me going. WOULD BE REMISS IF I DIDN’T MENTION THAT THE GIRL WHO STOLE MY BOYFRIEND AND CALLED ME UGLY EVERY DAY IN HIGH SCHOOL NOW HAS GENITAL HERPES AND IS MISSING MULTIPLE TEETH. That one feels so good."
25. "She’s a fucking millionaire three years after becoming a photographer. She and her husband quit their jobs as teachers, and now they don’t even take pictures. They have like 20 people who bought in to become part of the franchise they created. They just had a beautiful child, are living their best life, and are truly the kindest, most humble people. Well, she is. Her husband is NOT."
26. "The queen bee who bullied me is now a full-time soccer mom, raising another generation of assholes."
27. "She went to Yale for undergrad, then the University of Edinburgh for a master's degree and the University of Colorado for medical school. She was very nice, an amazing athlete, extremely intelligent, and very attractive. Everyone liked her. If I remember correctly, she won state in women's singles tennis three years in a row. I just looked her up, and she's in the department of emergency medicine at a prestigious medical school in the US. Good genetics on that one."
28. "Prison. Drunk driving, killed a classmate's family. Also, his older brother vanished and has never been seen since that same time. Police found his truck with all of his clothes folded neatly, with shoes, all on his seat. The cellphone and the entire inside of the truck had been wiped down. Few footprints nearby, nothing else. Ten people have gone missing from that area in five years."
29. "One of the super-popular guys went to law school and got his law degree, but two years later he got a DUI and got disbarred. I think he works at Amazon as a manager now, though. He was always super chill to be around and talk to."
30. "One of my buddies, who was more of the 'popular because he had all the weed' popular, hung out with the shitheads of the school — all of whom are either in jail or dead. I don't think he ever got locked up, as he ended up having a kid, losing a lot of weight, and putting time and effort into supporting his new family. It was great seeing that at my wife's 10-year reunion (she was a year behind me). He was on his way to closing on a house."
31. "The super-popular kid at my school was a genuinely nice guy who knew everyone by name and remembered stuff about you so he could talk to you about your interests and make you feel like you were his friend. Incredible that he had room for all that in his head as well as acing his schoolwork and exams. Ran into him a few years ago, and he’s a doctor of mathematics teaching and doing research at one of the country’s top universities. We had an interesting conversation about getting research grants. We also share a birthday, so we make a point to message each other on Facebook once a year; it's pretty much the only time we post anything."
32. And finally: "They're cool adults. Just as pretty, successful, and popular as they've been since kindergarten. They're married to handsome men and they have nice houses; cute, popular children; and nice jobs. The only one who didn't choose that homey route straight away after uni went on to win several Olympic gold medals before she got a husband and baby and fancy house. Basically, none of them peaked in high school. They're still peaking."
"Pretty much the same here as well. Although they’ve become more human to me. After we graduated, I saw one whose parent killed themself while he was in college. The other had to drop out of high school because they got pregnant. They’re married now and have a good life. Another was sexually assaulted. She shared her experience during the #MeToo movement. They’re all still pretty, have good incomes, good houses, and lovely significant others. But there’s still struggle there. It’s just different from yours. Doesn’t mean it’s not there."
What happened to the most popular kid from YOUR high school? Let us know in the comments!
Note: Some submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.
Dial 988 in the US to reach the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline. Other international suicide helplines can be found at befrienders.org. The Trevor Project, which provides help and suicide-prevention resources for LGBTQ youth, is 1-866-488-7386. In addition, if you or someone you know is in immediate danger as a result of domestic violence, call 911. For anonymous, confidential help, you can call the 24/7 National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233 (SAFE) or chat with an advocate via the website.