Shark Tank's Kevin O'Leary Is Seriously Shady

Kevin O'Leary often calls himself "Mr. Wonderful" on "Shark Tank," but he isn't so great. Known for his abrasive nature, he's not afraid of getting into screaming matches during the hopefuls' pitches or with his fellow investors. A Reddit user vented, "He will constantly yell and shout and be mean to entrepreneurs for no reason, talks over them, interrupts other sharks, has no patience to hear them out properly, gets irritated. I watched the Kitchen Safe pitch, where he just again and again called the product 'crap,' till the entrepreneur started tearing up, then yelled at the entrepreneur to not cry and 'be a man.'"

If you ask him, however, O'Leary thinks his shady side is a gift, even though he once made the worst "Shark Tank" deal ever. "There's a reason people call me Mr. Wonderful. Because I tell the truth and the truth sometimes hurts but it's still the truth. I look at it this way. I prefer deals where I have control, 51%," he told Pop Culture Passionistas. He added, "I'm here to make money, not friends. If you want friends, buy a dog." Sure, he's a multi-millionaire who donates to charity, but that doesn't detract from the many times O'Leary has been super shady.

Kevin O'Leary regularly doles out free money advice on his Instagram, but not everybody is a fan of one money-saving tip in particular. In a video, he stated, "Stop buying coffee for $5.50. You got to work and spend $15 on a sandwich — what are you, an idiot? It costs you 99 cents to make a sandwich at home and bring it with you." He added, "Most people, particularly working in metropolitan cities that are just starting out in their job making their first $60,000, piss away about $15,000 a year on stupid stuff."

Fans called O'Leary out for his clueless take on grocery costs. "[99 cents?] lol someone is out of touch with reality lol," one commented. Another wrote, "I have to chuckle at people who have made a fortune off consumers then tell the consumers not to spend money on the things that made them wealthy." While spending money on coffee every day is admittedly draining to the bank account, non-rich folks need to find happiness in the little things, so we're going to keep buying our coffee — thanks.

We know that businesspeople have to do whatever it takes to get ahead, and for Kevin O'Leary, that means firing his mom if he has to. "You do, because in the end, when you create a business and you start one ... your allegiance has to be the business first because, without that, all the good things that you want to do are going to fail," he stated in an interview shared by Inc. O'Leary pointed out that most people hire friends and family when they start a business and nepotism eventually gets in the way of success.

In 2017, O'Leary told The Street, "When you build a company around family and you have that blood tie, the hardest thing is to fire someone in your family that can't execute. You realize that no one person is the business." He added, "You have to make the tough decisions." Family or not, if you don't deliver, O'Leary is going to hand you the walking papers.

Even as a kid, Kevin O'Leary wanted to be nothing but the boss. In a Fox News interview shared on his Facebook page, the businessman recalled his first job at an ice cream parlor and having a crush on a girl who worked at a store across from it. O'Leary had planned to take her out after work, but his boss came over and ordered him to scrape all the gum off the floor. He recalled thinking, "That's not on brand for me. Getting on my knees and scraping the floor is a bad look." After refusing to scrape the gum, the owner fired him. "That was the last time I ever worked for anybody," the Canadian native declared.

While his boss mentality allowed him to rise to the top, a fan wrote on Goalcast's Facebook post, "See, here is the problem I have with this mindset: When everyone enters the job market and refuse to do tasks they deem 'beneath' them, you sit a bunch of entitled brats with zero experience ... If you don't know and experience an industry from ground level, you have no idea how things actually get done. It teaches humility, which is greatly lacking in the world." Another critic stated, "So he thought he was too good to scrape gum off the floor. This is the attitude of the ultra rich toward the rest of us. Explains a lot about the current state of our economy."

In August, Kevin O'Leary discussed Australia's new law that protects employees' right to ignore texts, phone calls, and emails during non-work hours. "What happens if you have an event in the office and it's closed? Or you have an emergency somewhere and you have to get a hold of them at two in the morning because it affects the job they're working on and their mandate within the organization?" O'Leary is seen saying in a Fox News clip he posted on X, formerly Twitter. He then stated that if any of his employees went on "silent mode," he would fire them.

An X user responded, "Emergency? Please explain. If I'm at home with my family or not, that is my time; NOT my company's time. There's no argument here. I do not call my boss for my [emergencies] at home." Another reasoned, "As a business owner, I can't imagine expecting employees to be on call during their off hours. If there's an emergency, it's my problem, not theirs. Unless I want to make them a part owner." At least those looking to work for O'Leary know where he stands on his employees being on-call — all the time.

Kevin O'Leary will never lend you money, but he'll give you a good chunk — just once and never again. In a video shared on YouTube, he stated that while having money is a good thing, it creates a host of problems — namely, family members hitting him up for some. "Here's how you solve that problem," he told viewers. O'Leary went on to explain that if his kin asked to borrow $150,000 to start a business, his tactic was to give the person a large chunk of cash instead of lending it out for a stake in the company. He would tell his family members, "It's not a loan. It's a gift. I never want it back from you on one condition and one condition only: You never ask me for money ever again."

O'Leary's reasoning for gifting instead of lending money is that he doesn't want to wait around for payments, according to Business Insider. "The power of money needs to be respected. My extended family keeps getting bigger and bigger, and the more money you have, the more problems you have — that's the bottom line," he stated. He even enforced his rule with his kids, whom he shares with his wife Linda, and declared, "My children have been very successful in their careers because they realized there's no free lunch." The big takeaway from this is that if you're going to ask O'Leary for money, make it count.