17 Undeniably Toxic TV Relationships, Ranked By How Much Fans Rooted For Them Anyway

The beauty and the nerd – a story for the ages. Penny and Leonard are very cute together, and we’re still hoping they manage to get over their issues and live happily ever after. Since they’re married. Unfortunately, their relationship wasn't always of the healthy variety.

Penny has always been intimidated by Leonard’s intelligence, while Leonard’s mommy issues really put a dent in their romance. They’re both jealous, and have communication issues, not to mention that they’re complete opposites. Penny is bubbly and outgoing, Leonard is shy and neurotic. They’re unstable at best, toxic at worst.

The true Gilmore Girls OTP surely went through a lot before finally tying the knot in the revival. While Luke and Lorelai's chemistry was sizzling as early as Season 1, problems started shortly after they first got together.

L&L's banter was always witty and fun, so no one expected them to have communication issues. Turns out talking about David Bowie is one thing, making plans about the future quite another. Lorelai failed to tell Luke about her repeated encounters with Christopher, and Luke failed to tell Lorelai about the daughter who showed up unexpectedly in his life. Whoops. 

We hoped their issues would be solved after the series wrapped up, but then the revival came and – guess what? Eight years passed and these two never had an honest talk about marriage or children. That’s problematic. While fans are still wishing them all the happiness in the world, it's clear their relationship is anything but #goals. 

Theoretically, Chuck and Blair two are perfect for each other. They have amazing chemistry, love to manipulate others, always play games to get what they want. It was expected for fans to root for this couple to live happily ever after; thankfully, they did. But their relationship was also incredibly frustrating. Chuck treated Blair poorly on more than one occasion, to the point of verbally abusing her after she slept with both him and Nate.

Plus, remember that time he wanted to exchange her for a hotel? How do you forgive that? In real life, these two would either be long separated, or making a couple counselor very rich. 

Veronica's and Logan's love was epic. Or was it? Here’s another example of an on-again, off-again routine that was pretty toxic. Logan is awful to Veronica when the series starts, going as far as to threaten and bully her. He’s violent and self-destructive, always getting himself into some sort of a mess.

On the other hand, Veronica holds Logan to a standard he can never reach, and is skeptical when it comes to trusting him. But the chemistry they share is the stuff of fairy tales, and Logan had grown a lot by the time the movie came out. Fortunately, they make it all the way to their version of domestic bliss in the series revival... but for how long? 

It was pretty clear from the very beginning of Friends that lovebirds Ros and Rachel were endgame. That’s mainly why it’s baffling to think about all the things that made their relationship problematic. Ross was controlling and ridiculously jealous. He jumped in bed with someone else literally hours after he and Rachel broke up, making it impossible for her to trust him again.

On the other hand, Rachel used the influence she had over him to break up several of Ross’s relationships, just because she couldn't make up her mind about whether she wanted to be with him or not. Their on-again, off-again routine was anything but healthy. And yet, she was his lobster. How can one root against that? 

Elena and Damon shared undeniable chemistry, so Delena became a thing from early on in the series. But here’s the truth – it will never be okay for a teenage girl to date a guy who is hundreds of years older than her. Moreover, all the back and forth between Stefan and Damon put a rift between the brothers, which is also never cool.

While you could argue Elena brought out the best in Damon and Damon taught Elena how to live, we rarely saw them be truly happy together. Damon was always fighting against his true nature, and when he failed to live up to Elena’s standards, she suffered. At least they got to be together for a while after all the drama, although we didn't really get to see that.