'He tripped and fell onto the newly displayed trophy, immediately breaking it': 20+ Moments of pure embarrassment seen by a crowd of witnesses

Author image for Remy Millisky
Remy Millisky • Writer and Editor
Oct 28, 2023 11:00 AM EDT

They say that you're most likely the only person who will remember your most embarrassing moments. But you won't feel that way after reading this treasure trove of embarrassing memories that people recalled with crystal clear memory!

Have you ever accidentally walked through a screen door at someone else's birthday party, slamming face-first into the ground? This happened to me when I was about eight years old at an acquaintance's party, and the memory has stuck with me for decades. I wasn't paying attention, and instead of opening a screen door, I walked into it/through it, and it fell out of its frame, leaving me sprawled out on the back porch in front of fifty kids and adults.

 A bunch of moms ran over to make sure I was fine, but I'll never forget the look on the birthday child's mom's face. She was annoyed that I broke her door! Rightfully so! It was very awkward and embarrassing, and I have no idea if anyone else in the world remembers this happening besides me.

There are much worse ways to publicly embarrass yourself. You can check out the hilariously harrowing stories below. Up next, check out a few school fails, like one school that just would not stop playing the "Baby Shark" song on repeat. 

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  • 01
    Font - What is the most embarrassing thing you've ever witnessed?
    via u/Konke420xd
  • 02
    Font - Stuntedatpuberty I went to an educational seminar to learn the new laws related to my industry. This was being conducted in a hotel ballroom. There had to be at least 200 people in the room. I can't recall whether the presenters all sat up front, in the audience or a mix. This attorney gets to the podium and gets her papers together. She starts to talk, but can't get a recognizable word out and completely froze up while everyone is watching. Another attorney had to get up and do the prese
    via u/Stuntedatpuberty
  • 03
    Font - I felt so bad for her. Public speaking is difficult for most people and what happened to her had to be extremely embarrassing.
    via u/Stuntedatpuberty
  • 04
    Font - Supa DupaDupa Dupa A guy making a cringey tap song as a proposal in a public restaurant and getting on one knee only for the girl to go quiet and look around and say "Justin, no! W seriously?" :
    via u/Supa DupaDupa Dupa
  • 05
    Font - Throwawaytommys. Took my children and a cousin to a natural water park that was a river running thru a valley that had worn its way into this smooth rock bed, it wore like marbel. The water carried you along with natural slides and dips great fun To ride down the river you first had to walk up it which was precarious in many places. The kids Cousin (D) wasn't the most confident guy but I'd been doing lots of work with him to fix that and we had done lots of swimming prior to this holiday
    via u/Throwawaytommys
  • 06
    Font - I picked the safest route up and told the kids only step where I show you please. As D made his way I pointed step there, pointing directly at a spot, do not go the other side D stepped the other side the water grabbed him snatched him off his feet and down. wiped his trunks off and they were gone, suddenly D is flying n de down this river atop the river on the hillside is a railed walking area, there were 100s of people laughing and pointing down as this kid in the nip goes dashing by
    via u/Throwawaytommys
  • 07
    Font - CAU meetmeinthebthrm . There was this kid in my high school that was taking karate classes. He decided he wanted to fight a kid that was bullying him after school in the town park. A s ton of people went. He got all pumped up before the fight.
    via u/meetmeinthebthrm
  • 08
    Font - Instantly, once the fight started, he began doing karate moves at the air. Once he reached the bully, the first thing he decided to do was a very flashy "spinning backhand"(?). He missed by a mile and was knocked out immediately. I felt really bad for him. He was always known for not being able to read situations very well and that, being his first normal fight, was just the absolute worst time to try that move out. Bullies s ck. It was embarrassing for both of them.
    via u/meetmeinthebthrm
  • 09
    Font - Much-Meringue-7467. Our company is adopting a new video conferencing system. On Tuesday, there was a big presentation from a representative of the new system. In a 45 minute presentation, the new system froze and had to be restarted 3 times. I felt pretty bad for the guy
    via u/Much-Meringue-7467
  • 10
    Font - carolinemathildes Middle school graduation dinner, one of the other students had asked ahead of time if they could sing. For whatever reason, I don't know. So, while the rest of us are sitting at our tables eating, she gets up in front of us all with a guitar and starts singing Blackbird by The Beatles. I don't think I'd ever heard her sing before, I have no idea why she wanted to (she was always one of the smartest people in our grade and achieved a lot academically so I think maybe she
    via u/carolinemathildes
  • 11
    Font - It was genuinely one of the worst things I'd ever heard in my life. She could not sing even a little. Her voice shook on every word, it cracked, she was out of tune. Every person had to stare at their down at their food while trying not to laugh in her face. I remember sitting next to my best friend and we just kept glancing at each other like "what the is happening right now." Thinking of it now makes me laugh again, and I know that if I called up my friend right now and sang "blackbird
    via u/carolinemathildes
  • 12
    Font - She finished Blackbird, and then decided to follow it up with American Pie, which thankfully a lot of us knew the words to, and the teachers walked around encouraging us to sing together (and drown her out). Part of me is like, well it, she did it! She was brave! But I do wonder if she thought she was actually good or not.
    via u/carolinemathildes
  • 13
    Font - JoyceReardon Alright, so my husband and I were driving around the city and it was pouring outside. Absolutely pouring. We were about to pass the lightrail train tracks (going in both directions) when the crossing gates came down because the lightrail was approaching. One idiot in a van decided he could make it across before the gates came all the way down. He kept on driving, but he did not make it. Instead, his vehicle was now trapped between the gates.
    via u/JoyceReardon
  • 14
    Font - We could see from our car that this person was PANICKING. His life was flashing before his eyes. In his movie mind, the lightrail was about to crash into the van and drag it for dozens of yards before finally stopping... so he did what anyone would do. He violently pushed the door open and RAN in the pouring rain for his life. He was halfway down the street before he stopped, turned around, and noticed that the lightrail was patiently waiting for him to move the vehicle. The door was stil
    via u/JoyceReardon
  • 15
    Font - 100TonsOfCheese I took an abstract mathematics class as part of my undergrad work. Our professor was this hard a Russian lady with a thick accent. We are going over the answers for our first exam and one of the guys in class who apparently did not do very well starts arguing with her about how she graded one of his answers. Keep in mind that these are mathematical proofs, so
    via u/100TonsOfCheese
  • 16
    Font - how you came to the answer is more important than the answer itself. At first she says, "Let's talk at my office hours". He persists with his case that he actually got the problem correct. "Please, please let's talk outside of class" He does not want to talk outside class he wants to talk about it right now. Finally she says, "I'm sorry I don't know how to help you. You did so badly... I just don't know how to help you...Do not come to my office hours. I do not know how to help you. I can
    via u/100TonsOfCheese
  • 17
    Font - but you." Everyone is stunned. It was like she dropped an emotional nuke, because even though her comments were directed at one person, she hurt the feelings of everyone in the room. Dude just silently packs his things and leaves. He never came back to that class.
    via u/100TonsOfCheese
  • 18
    Font - NathanialHornblower. At a pep rally to celebrate a sporting victory, a student insisted that he carry the school flag and run laps around the team. He tripped and fell onto the newly displayed trophy, immediately breaking it. This was on the front page of Reddit for a bit and I'm glad I witnessed it as my school's claim to fame.
    via u/NathanialH0rnblower
  • 19
    Font - AlMinPhilly A friend of mine was a film student at a pretty prestigious film school in the Northeast. He invited myself and a few friends up for what would ultimately be the film festival and screening for most of the student films and writing projects etc. I was basically there as an observer and to support my buddy and as a film lover I got to see some pretty neat little projects and meet some cool people.
    via u/AlMinPhilly
  • 20
    Font - One of the projects was a film that I'll refer to as "O-6" (it was a student film and I respect this person enough to not directly reference something that clearly was one of the roughest days of their life). 0-6 had posters for it plastered all over campus. There was a viable army of students and visitors to the campus (including this poor guy's family) all wearing 0-6 t-shirts. There was a Facebook group and a short trailer for O-6. It had more hype than some movies that get theatricall
    via u/AlMinPhilly
  • 21
    Font - Well, my buddy and his friends in the program tipped me off that 0-6 might be a piece of cringey gold and would be worth watching so we could joke about it later. The kid who directed it clearly thought he was like, Neo or something because he came in wearing sunglasses, and just looked like a typical "edgy cringe" kid for the early 2000's but this was 2014.
    via u/AlMinPhilly
  • 22
    Font - Anyway, it comes time for 0-6 to be screened and part of this film festival was that alumni came to critique and offer advice for the new students. There were some prestigious Alumni there including a guy who worked on various Marvel movies, a woman who wrote some major Hollywood scripts and a director of a few episodes of breaking bad, among others. The director of O-6 did a little speech before he screened it and called out some of the alumni stating they were his heroes.
    via u/AlMinPhilly
  • 23
    Font - The movie begins and good lord is it bad. The kid who directed is also the star of the movie and there were multiple scenes of him flexing shirtless in what was supposed to be a sci fi action flick. He was like 120 lbs and scrawny and on screen flexing thinking people would think it was bada Everyone starts laughing. I felt bad but then about 5 minutes later he starts on rolling around in l what's supposed to be another planet but it's just him in his tighty whiteys writing in KW jelly. A
    via u/AlMinPhilly
  • 24
    Font - There's a terrible love scene, an awful laser fight and at one point he hugs another man covered in KW jelly and half n in nothing but undies and sunglasses. Everyone breaks out laughing and the director kid just sits there stoically listening to everyone laugh. It was also all shot on a sunny day in someone's backyard. I get it was a student film but the other films had been so much more polished and this just came out and was so bizarre and poorly done.
    via u/AlMinPhilly
  • 25
    Font - It finally mercifully ends. The kid takes the podium to get critiques and just one by one all the teachers, alumni and students LAY INTO this poor guy. He holds back tears and eventually they get to the director from breaking bad who he idolized and he says "I have nothing to say." which was basically his way of saying "I don't want to embarrass you anymore than you already have been." In front of his entire family, peers and people he idolized this poor kid got absolutley lit up and emba
    via u/AlMinPhilly
  • 26
    Font - haesslichryn when i was in third grade the schools were just starting to add those projector screens. and my class was known for being uncontrollable and disrespectful. my teacher tried bringing hers down so we could watch a movie but it got stuck and when she pulled the whole thing came down and hit her on the head pretty hard. almost the entire class started laughing at her and calling her dumb rather than asking if she was okay or needed
    via u/haesslichryn
  • 27
    Font - help. i think that was her breaking point because she ended up sitting on the floor and cried for a while and the principal dismissed her right there and substituted for her for the rest of the day. my brother was friends with her daughter who revealed later on that she quit teaching after that because she couldn't handle how mean a group of kids could be. i still feel so badly for her to this day.
    via u/haesslichryn
  • 28
    Font - Friend of mine who learnt how to do a burnout from just YouTube videos decided to do a burnout. He thought the smoke was the tyres spinning on the spot, it was actually the clutch being burnt out. We tried telling him but he thought we were egging him on until someon ran up to the deiverside and switched the car off at the ignition. Now this wouldn't have been too bad if he did this on a driveway or a side road to 3 or 4 people, but he entered himself into a amateur burnout contest and al
    via r/AskReddit
  • 29
    Font - JU Bells87 My graduating high school class was close to 550 kids. It was held in an amphitheater to accommodate everyone, where they usually hold big summer concerts. As one girl walked on stage to get her diploma, I noticed a very large, very wet, very red stain on the back of her white gown. My exact train of thought was "Did she sit in paint-OH MY GOD." I can't even imagine the embarrassment and pain she went through walking in front of everyone.
    via u/Bells87
  • 30
    Font - Niteryder007 I was at a food court and I got the brilliant idea to jump over a row of those plastic chairs and tables.. You know, the ones that are fixed to the floor. Foot got caught and I fell flat on my face. I stood up to 30 people clapping. One guy yelled asking for my autograph.
    via u/Niteryder007
  • 31
    Font - Frankensteinbatch I pretty recently wiped out on my roller blades in a Hasidic Jewish neighborhood on a Saturday evening so there were like at least 5 groups of men walking around me while i wheezed on the ground because I got air knocked out of my lungs. None of them could come help me because of what I later learned from a friend was a refraining from touch out of respect(I'm probably butchering it) but at the moment it sure was extremely embarrassing to wheeze for 5 minutes on all four
    via u/Frankensteinbatch
  • 32
    Font - NymphZenRobot My chemistry teacher in high school was the nicest guy. He taught the whole class with his fly down. No one knew how to tell him and we didn't want to embarrass him. The worst part was, we had lab with him the next period. His fly was up, but he was unusually quiet.
    via u/NymphZenRobot
  • 33
    Font - bigjilm123 Back in 1998, I bought the worlds fastest production motorcycle. A Kawasaki ZX9R, lime green, absolutely insane machine. A month later, the Yamaha R1 eclipsed it, but for a month it was THE bike on the street. I got a first date with the hottest woman I had ever met, and we decide to ride the bike down to the beach for a coffee. We pull up in front of the coffee shop, and everyone is looking. Hottest bike, gorgeous woman - I'm strutting like I own the place.
    via u/bigjilm123
  • 34
    Font - We have a coffee while a small crowd gathers around the bike. As we leave, all these guys are asking questions about it, pointing out how sick it was, blah blah blah. Helmets on, start the bike and blip the throttle for bonus points. I climb on, she climbs on and I kick it into gear. We move about two inches WHAT and HOLY F THE F BLAM. I had left the disc lock on the front rotor, so the bike lurches, my date goes over my shoulder head first onto the pavement, and the bike falls on my leg
    via u/bigjilm123
  • 35
    Font - Some guys lift the bike off of me, others help my date up, and everyone is cringing like crazy. She's fine, I'm fine, bike is fine. I pull off the lock and ride outta there as fast as possible. Not a total failure, as we've been married for almost twenty years. I'm still embarrassed thinking about it though.
    via u/bigjilm123
  • 36
    Font - mrjohnclare Ive told this story before on another subreddit but about 3 years ago now I went to my fiance's high school (where he was the wrestling coach) to watch their match. Got there early with our dinner and it turned out it was picture day for all the sports teams. I was/am very awkward so I opted just to sit on the floor at the back of the gym rather than be near some strangers on the bleachers.
    via u/mrjohnclare
  • 37
    Font - I barely noticed but some girls were f around with a basketball nearby. I have a magnet on my face when it comes to any type of sport ba Is so I kinda thought I might get hit. But I ignored it. Big miskate. Not five minutes later I heard a gasp and then BAM my glasses go flying. My drink has tipped over and my face hurts. I started to cry from embarrassment/shock and the girls came running to check on me. They got my glasses and helped cleaned up my soda. I had to keep explaining I'm not
    via u/mrjohnclare
  • 38
    Font - was so startled but I don't think they believed me. My glasses I broken right in the middle and I made a comment it would be hard to drive home later. One of the girls asked what grade I was in and I had to sheepishly reply I was 23 and a college graduate. They just said "oh" awkwardly and they slowly left me to get my together. S My fiance had actually left to do something so when he came back I had to use my phone camera to navigate until he found me some tape for my glasses lol
    via u/mrjohnclare
  • 39
    Font - lookssharp When I worked at a deli my boss grabbed a woman's stomach and congratulated her, she wasn't pregnant.
    via u/lookssharp
  • 40
    Font - [deleted] Not the super most embarassing, but something not p and s related: It was 2006, I was a 12 year old visiting Sydney Australia for the first time. Stopped over at a small sushi restaurant downtown. My grandmother and I sat at the sushi bar section with the Chef, with a couple seated across us. The man was a white Australian bloke, while the woman with him was Asian. Through their body language they seemed very close and romantic, and as a young kid i was embarassed to see a coupl
    via u/[deleted]
  • 41
    Font - so I tried averting my attention elsewhere. However, this was difficult as he was loud compared to the restaurants ambience and kept drawing attention. As we waited for our food, a small lunch crowd started coming in to the restaurant. The couple's food came, and the lady started digging in. The bloke seemed confused looking at the green wasabi packet and asked "HEY BAYBE, WOT'S THIS FOR AYE?" His lady friend explained how its called Wasabi paste and its to eat with the sushi.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 42
    Font - He looked at the paste, and very expressively toyed and studied it. Before long he asked again "WELL, HOW DO YA GO AND DO THAT?" She then instructed him very carefully and softly almost in a whisper, how he's supposed to consume them. And there I saw him quietly reflecting on what she said. He took the sushi and put it in his mouth, chewed for a bit before taking a dollop of the wasabi and snorting it up his nostril.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 43
    Font - "AGHHH F H his face turned tomato red and his lady friend off as laughing her al he continued hacking and coughing. I immediately start laughing too, seeing what had just happened. My grandmother didnt understand, so asked me "What just happened?" The sushi chef was also laughing his a off and replied before i got to "THE GUY SNORT WASABI HAHAHAHA". By this point, others at the bar started laughing and even the people seated at the booths too. It was raucous, like we were in a tiny comedy
    via u/[deleted]
  • 44
    Font - The guy took it like a champ tho, made a tiny wave to everyone to let us know he was alright before continuing with his meal.
    via u/[deleted]
  • 45
    Font - DaniTheLovebug. 1 yr. ago Oh god help me I'm gonna tell this story Me I was a younger gal and crushed HARD on another girl at the stable I rode at. She didn't know it. Remember Tony Hawk for GameCube? Well around that time, in the game series you could create a skater. Design them, change body features, etc. I once spent a solid 30 minutes creating a great replica of her. I used to play as her and so forth.
    via u/DaniTheLovebug
  • 46
    Font - Flash forward to Christmas. This year was my family's year to host the barn party. We had a great time. Then I'm chilling and I hear the other girls say "oh cool, Danielle (me) has a GameCube. We should play something." I thought nothing of it... wait...oh no. S !I know what game and memory card are in the system!
    via u/DaniTheLovebug
  • 47
    Font - I walk into the room just as they are all staring at the choose a skater screen. Jennifer (my crush) is on the screen. I had her first and last name. She looked a lot like her. You know that meme picture where it's a party? First person view? Like 40 girls holding cups, cringing and staring at the viewer? That's what I walked into. I hid in my room until the part ended
    via u/DaniTheLovebug
  • 48
    Rectangle - SNESChalmers420 my ex-friend yelling at his mom for buying him a set of tires for his truck.
    via u/SNESChalmers420

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