Summary
- Travis Tanner (Eric Close) is an unlikable rival of Harvey’s who resorts to illegal tactics to win, making his immoral actions infuriating.
- Stephen Huntley (Max Beesley) falls short as a counterpart to Harvey, trying too hard to impress with material possessions and breaking the law.
- Sheila (Rachael Harris) rubs fans the wrong way by getting in the way at the office and ultimately causing a tragic chain of events.
The most hated characters in Suits helped to add more excitement to the legal drama, and the show excelled at including presences viewers loved to hate. As Suits continues to find popularity on streaming services after ending in 2019, more and more people are discovering the high-stakes legal adventures of Harvey Specter and Mike Ross. The two main characters were easy protagonists to root for, and even more complicated characters like Louis Litt provided many endearing moments. Then there were the most hated characters in Suits, who seemed to end up despised by almost every viewer.
In some cases, these characters were meant to be detestable as they were the villains who stood in the way of Harvey and Mike. However, in others, the personalities of these characters simply didn’t click with the viewership, and they became easy to root against. Many great moments in Suits came when these hated characters met their comeuppance, although there are definitely others who perhaps deserved a little more credit than they were given.
Suits is available to stream on Peacock.
12 Travis Tanner
Played by Eric Close
Travis Tanner (Eric Close) is set up to be a rival of Harvey’s which immediately makes him unlikable. However, Tanner proves time and time again that he is a lesser lawyer as he has to resort to illegal tactics in order to win. Tanner tampers with evidence and witnesses, once creating a fake affidavit and forcing someone to sign it knowing it is a lie. Even with all the cheating, he still finds himself bested by Harvey. What makes his immoral actions all the more infuriating is the fact that he shows no guilt and insists it is the same thing Harvey does to get where he is, not able to comprehend being a good lawyer.
11 Stephen Huntley
Played by Max Beesley
Like Travis Tanner, Stephen Huntley (Max Beesley) is an unlikeable Suits character because he is supposed to be the counterpoint to Harvey yet falls far short. When the merger is underway in New York, Huntley arrives as Darby’s right-hand man and a British equivalent to Harvey. However, he quickly proves himself to only be like Harvey on the surface with his love of expensive cars, nice clothes, and beautiful women feeling like a forced attempt to be impressive. He is another lawyer who proves they cannot be like Harvey without breaking the law. Perhaps most egregious of all, the attempts to start a relationship with Donna which was always doomed to fail.
10 Sheila Sazs
Played by Rachael Harris
Sheila (Rachael Harris) was the perfect match for Louis and was the one person to finally make him happy, which unfortunately made her unlikable to everyone else. That relationship rubbed some fans the wrong way with the way she would treat Louis and get in the way around the Pearson Hardman office. In fact, even when she did what was technically the right thing, it was easy to hate her for it. She was the one, after all, who tipped off the U.S. Attorney’s office to the fact that Mike didn’t actually graduate from Harvard, which set off a tragic chain of events.
9 Daniel Hardman
Played by David Costabile
If there was ever a clear villain on Suits, it was Daniel Hardman (David Costabile). Co-founder of Pearson Hardman, as it was originally known, he was out for blood after being forced to leave when it was discovered that he was embezzling money. Jessica used the information of his affair on his wife, who had cancer at the time, as a means of blackmailing him to leave.
Daniel made for an excellent villain as he was not only smart but also ruthless. Daniel caused a lot of trouble for the firm when he came back, forcing Jessica to merge with another law firm and generally wreaking havoc. In a sense, he did his job perfectly as a villain by making himself truly detestable.
8 Sean Cahill
Played by Neal McDonough
Suits is a show with a lot of deceit and betrayals, which makes it hard for the audience to trust anyone outside of the main characters. While Sean (Neal McDonoguh) often came to Harvey’s rescue, he also carried himself in a way that made it hard to truly see him as one of the good guys. A prosecutor for the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, he always seemed to be holding something over Harvey’s head and that of the firm.
It felt like only a matter of time before his position would make Sean an enemy of Harvey and the others. While he did eventually become an ally, even helping Mike get released from prison early, this was preceded by a long period of unease around him which made him one of the least popular characters in Suits.
7 Samantha Wheeler
Played by Katherine Heigl
Samantha Wheeler (Katherine Heigl) was always at risk of being one of the most hated characters in Suits, since she arrived in the latter seasons to fill the hole left by the departure of two main characters, Jessica and Rachel. While Samantha was a solid addition to the legal team and a tough lawyer who trained in boxing in her free time, her character didn’t quite live up to the others.
She began as a very ruthless person who was only in it for herself, which mirrored both Jessica and Harvey. However, since Samantha often went against characters who viewers had already come to know and love, she was an unwelcome antagonist. By the time Samantha had officially joined as a regular cast member in season 8, she was among the least likable main characters on Suits.
6 Charles Forstman
Played by Eric Roberts
The epitome of selfish wealth, Charles had billions but didn’t do much good. He manipulated and used people and garnered a bad reputation for himself. It was because of Harvey’s brother threatening to go to Forstman for money that Harvey took the job with Jessica in the first place. Charles felt like a traditional villain in Suits, with Eric Roberts embracing the billionair character’s most unlikable traits and being a slimy operator. The audience only enjoyed seeing Charles on the show with the hopes that he would eventually get his comeuppance. He eventually does, landing himself in prison by the time Suits ended in 2019.
5 Jack Soloff
Played by John Pyper-Ferguson
Jack (John Pyper-Ferguson) came across as an opportunist, a lawyer who was never quite good enough to become top dog but believed that he was always overlooked. As soon as things got tough, Jack made the switch to join Rand, Kaldor & Zane. He did help Mike through his journey at the firm, but he also shed a spotlight on Harvey’s inflated paycheck, mostly because he was jealous.
Jack’s pettiness make him an incredibly dislikable Suits character. He even came up with a new compensation formula, as the head of the compensation committee, to ensure that Harvey didn’t make away with millions more than everyone else. He tried over and over again to one-up Mike, Harvey, and Jessica, but was always bested by them.
4 Frank Gallo
Played by Paul Schulze
Frank (Paul Schulze) was a prisoner alongside Mike. He was charged with conspiracy to commit murder (even though he claimed it was racketeering), and it was clear that he was violent and dangerous and had it out for Mike from the beginning. He was a constant threat that made Mike’s time in prison worse than it had to be. He had the prison system and guards wrapped around his finger, and it was later revealed that it was Harvey who put him in jail, which led him to try and get revenge through Mike.
He was an overall despicable person and a violent criminal. While many characters on the wrong side of the law in Suits are still good people, and many were even likable, Paul Schulze’s Frank definitely isn’t one of them.
3 Trevor Evans
Played by Tom Lipinski
It was because of Mike’s childhood friend, Trevor (Tom Lipinski), that he was kicked out of Harvard in the first place, and barred from ever legally being able to become a lawyer, which set Mike’s life on the wrong path. Not only that, but when Trevor resurfaced, he is the one who broke the truth to Jessica about Mike not actually having a law degree.
Trevor was a bad influence on Mike, using him to take tests for other students to help pay off Trevor’s drug debt. While Mike was indebted to Trevor and his family for being there for him following the tragic death of his parents, it still didn’t give Trevor the right to use Mike’s abilities to solve a problem of his own making. Since he’s been a thorn in Mike’s side so often, it’s easy to see why Trevor is among the most hated characters in Suits.
2 Dana Scott
Played by Abigail Spencer
While Dana (Abigail Spencer) was a strong, smart woman and seemingly a good match for Harvey, unfortunately, she got in the middle of one of the show’s most popular “will they won’t they” relationships. It was easy to root for Harvey and Donna to end up together in the end, and that meant that any girlfriend Harvey appeared to be serious with was unwelcome. While Dana did a lot to help Harvey, even when she had to put their differences aside and realized that Donna would always be part of the relationship, there was always a sense that she was merely a hiccup in the inevitable Donna-Harvey love story.
1 Anita Gibbs
Played by Leslie Hope
When it came to the case against Mike and the threat of him being disbarred, there were a lot of characters in Suits who were just doing their job, but ended up being hated as a result. Such is the case with Anita Gibbs (Leslie Hope), the lawyer who was focused on having Mike disbarred. She instantly became hated by many viewers for not taking into account all the good Mike had done.
Instead, she focused on a technicality and did her best to ensure Mike couldn’t practice law again. It is not hard to see where she was coming from, but Mike was one of the heroes of Suits and the audience had seen him prove himself as a lawyer time and time again. As a result, Anita comes off as a cold antagonist who was more-or-less universally despised, even though she was technically just following the letter of the law.