Top 10 Worst Things Greg Heffley from Diary of a Wimpy Kid Has Done
Greg Heffley might be the main character of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, but let's be honest, he's far from a role model. Throughout the books and movies, Greg has pulled off some pretty questionable stunts, ranging from selfish and reckless to downright mean-spirited. While his antics might make for entertaining reading, they also make you wonder how he manages to keep any friends at all. Time and time again, Greg proves that he's willing to throw people under the bus, lie his way out of trouble, and take advantage of just about anyone if it benefits him.This list takes a look at some of Greg's worst moments, whether they come from his thoughtless decisions, outright betrayals, or just plain bad behavior. Some of these incidents are funny in a secondhand embarrassment kind of way, while others are enough to make you shake your head in disbelief. No matter how much you might like Greg as a character, there's no denying that he has a long track record of making selfish choices at the expense of others.
Shoutout to egnomac for inspiring this list. His deep dives into Diary of a Wimpy Kid and other topics really helped shape this one.
In the book, Greg has to walk the kindergarteners home because Rowley had to take a pop quiz. Greg forgot his raincoat, so Rowley gives Greg his raincoat. When Greg walks the kindergarteners home, he chases them with worms on a stick. Unfortunately, Mrs. Irvine catches Greg tormenting the kindergarteners but thinks Rowley is doing it because of his raincoat. Rowley ends up getting expelled from the safety patrol as a result and is forced to apologize to the kindergarteners for something he did not do.
In the movie, Rowley has Greg walk the kindergarteners home because he doesn't want to get his arm cast dampened. When Greg is walking the kindergarteners home, he notices a red pickup truck about to drive by and thinks it's the teenagers who tormented him on Halloween. So Greg makes the kindergarteners hide in a manhole so the teenagers wouldn't see them. As it turns out, it wasn't the teenagers driving that red pickup truck, and much like the book, Mrs. Irvine thought Rowley was tormenting the kindergarteners, and Rowley got expelled from the safety patrol.
In both the book and movie, Greg tells Rowley the truth, and their friendship goes downhill from there. Greg ends up getting expelled from the safety patrol, and Rowley is promoted to team captain.
In the book, Greg and Mrs. Heffley are in the middle of their Reading Is Fun Club session when Mr. Jefferson stops by their house and informs them that his country club bill had an $83 smoothie expense, holding Greg responsible. Greg had no idea that you can get charged for ordering things at the country club. When Greg and Rowley ordered all of those smoothies, they wrote down Mr. Jefferson's account number and didn't think it was a credit card number or anything like that.
On Greg Heffley's birthday, Mrs. Heffley confiscates his birthday money to pay off Mr. Jefferson's smoothie bill. In the movie, Greg walks into the country club without Rowley inviting him and overhears Mr. Jefferson complaining about the expensive smoothie charge on his bill. When Mr. Heffley comes in to give Greg his sunblock, Mr. Jefferson tells him about Greg racking up a $260 smoothie charge on his country club bill. Mr. Heffley pays the bill and takes Greg home.
In both the book and the movie, Greg is cast as one of the trees during the middle school's production of The Wizard of Oz. Barely midway through the play, Greg starts to throw apples at Patty Farrell, who was cast as Dorothy. This pretty much ruined the show.
When everyone in Greg's family went to sleep, Greg snuck downstairs to play Rodrick's heavy metal CD in the family room's stereo. The music was played at full volume, but Greg's headphones were not plugged into the stereo. This alarmed Mr. Heffley, who immediately scolded Greg for his wrongdoings and revoked his video game privileges for two weeks.
In the year prior to the book's timeline, Mrs. Heffley made a gingerbread house and forbade everyone from touching it until Christmas Eve dinner. Impatient as Greg is, he snuck downstairs every night and nabbed a small piece of the gingerbread house so his mother wouldn't notice. He was clueless about how much of the gingerbread house he had eaten until Christmas Eve dinner, when the gingerbread house looked like it was destroyed. As you would expect, Mrs. Heffley accused Greg of eating the gingerbread house. He tried to deny it, but it didn't help him out of this situation.
When Greg was at Rowley's house playing board games, he noticed some familiar money sticking out from one of the board game boxes. He saw that it was the same money that his mother uses for Mom Bucks, and he took all of the money from Rowley's board game. Later in the book, Greg pays Rodrick $20,000 in Mom Bucks to get his old research paper from when he was in middle school.
The following day, Mrs. Heffley discovers Greg's counterfeit Mom Bucks when Rodrick attempts to cash in all of the Mom Bucks Greg paid him with for a used motorcycle. Mrs. Heffley's suspicions rise because Rodrick has not earned any Mom Bucks on his own. Rodrick directs Mrs. Heffley to Greg's secret stash of Mom Bucks hidden in his mattress. Since $100,000 was not put into circulation, Mrs. Heffley confiscates all of Greg's Mom Bucks, both counterfeit and legitimate.
Greg just came back from the country club and is informed by his dad that his office is doing a summer internship program and has signed Greg up. Unwilling to accept Mr. Heffley's offer, Greg lies to his dad that he got a job at the country club when he saw a help-wanted sign and a manager hired him on the spot (which is not how job applications work in real life). His dad believed him and congratulated Greg for getting a job.
The revelation that Greg didn't get a job comes when Mr. Jefferson informs Mr. Heffley about the $260 smoothie charge on his country club bill. When Mr. Heffley tells Mr. Jefferson that Greg works there, a country club employee chimes in and says they don't hire minors.
Frank should have known that Greg wasn't telling the truth because employees do not get hired the day they apply for a job. Greg was 13 years old during the storyline, making him one year shy of the minimum age requirement for a job. Greg was vague about what job he got at the country club when he informed his father. Greg was not wearing a name tag, nor was he dressed for work during the smoothie bill scene. Just another lie that Greg failed to keep under wraps.
Midway through the sermon at church, Greg decides to call Manny "ploopy," a nickname that Manny has used for Greg as a way of taking out his frustrations ever since Mr. Heffley threw out Manny's favorite blanket, Tingy. When Greg calls Manny "ploopy," it causes Manny to bawl so loudly that everyone, including the minister, turns their attention to the Heffleys. Shortly afterward, the Heffleys leave church because of Manny's inability to calm down and forbid everyone in the family from using the word "ploopy."
You might think this shows Manny's double standards, but it's somewhat natural for 3-year-olds to not realize they've done something wrong until they're punished for it. Basically, it was Greg's fault that Manny cried loudly at church, and even his mother was mad at him for his wrongdoing.
When Chirag Gupta came back to Greg's school, Greg and a couple of other students pretended he wasn't there by saying that they missed Chirag or that "it must have been the wind" whenever Chirag talked. The last straw was when Chirag told Rowley during lunch that he could have his corn dog if Rowley acknowledged Chirag's existence. Then Greg told everyone that there was a floating corn dog in the cafeteria and ate Chirag's corn dog in two bites.
When Mr. Gupta called Mrs. Heffley about what Greg did, Greg denied making the joke when confronted by his mother and was forced to apologize to Chirag, which was easier said than done for him. Afterwards, Mrs. Heffley was mad at Greg for lying to her about the joke and threatened to ground Greg for an entire month if he lied again.
The "Invisible Chirag" joke is a plot point in the movie, but Greg doesn't get reprimanded for what he did.
During the story arc where Greg tries to earn money to pay off Mr. Jefferson's smoothie bill, Greg and Rowley start the V.I.P. lawn service and mow Mrs. Canfield's lawn. Before any of the lawn was mowed, Rowley walked off the job because it seemed like Greg only cared about the profit margin of their business rather than actual lawn mowing.
When Greg mows the lawn by himself, all goes well until he notices dog droppings all over Mrs. Canfield's lawn. Greg mentions the V.I.P. lawn service's strict policy regarding dog excrement, stating that they don't go anywhere near it. So Greg mowed a 10-foot circle around anything that looked suspicious to him. When Greg finished the lawn, he charged Mrs. Canfield $20 for mowing and $10 for designing the flyer.
Obviously, Mrs. Canfield was reluctant to pay Greg for his lazy work, even after he informed her about the dog waste issue. Greg would have done a better job if it weren't for that strict policy regarding dog waste, and the policy itself seems laughable. It's not like dog waste can damage the lawnmower's wheels, blades, or motor. Greg could have easily cleaned it off the lawnmower, but it's implied he is too lazy to do so.
Also, he charged Mrs. Canfield $20 for poor-quality lawn mowing and an additional $10 for a flyer she did not ask for.
The Newcomers
Greg was trying to use his Ladybug to reach home, but the home button didn't work, so Greg pressed 911 by accident.
Later, when the police arrived, Rowley's dad opened the door and the policeman said, "He's got a knife!" and tackled Rowley's dad.
After that, Frank picked up Greg and took him home.
Rodrick placed a chocolate bar on Greg's seat in the car, and then their mom covered it up with her sweater for church. Later on, when it was time for the Heffleys to walk to the bima, Rodrick exposed the stain, and a little girl thought Greg had pooped his pants. Greg tried to tell everyone it was chocolate and licked it, but it grossed out the entire church. Greg and Rodrick beat each other up in front of the church, causing them to be banned from the trip to Rockin' Rapids. If there was no chocolate stain, Greg and Rodrick would have gone to Rockin' Rapids.