Bathroom Stall of Overheard Insults

"You can hear everything if you're in there long enough."

— Janeece Bryant, Waterloo Road

Whether it's a school, office, courtroom or even space ship, people love to Trash Talk about co-workers, peers or "the plan" in bathrooms. Of course, who else should be sitting quietly in the stall nearby than the person being discussed?

The usual set up for this goes like so: Alex is doing his business in a stall, when who should walk in but Charlie and Bob. Both of them start trash-talking Alex. Their conversation might not even be mean spirited, but simply flaws they wouldn't bring up in person that burst Alex's bubble. Or they assume that he's not out there and feel they can talk without consequences. After an earful, Alex will likely do one of four things:

1. Sit quietly, wait for Bob and Charlie to leave and weep to himself in the stall or run out crying, so that his best friend Dan can console him.
2. Wait for Bob and Charlie to leave, then storm out angrily while plotting revenge, or,
3. Storm out and accuse Bob and Charlie of being two-faced, or,
4. If Alex is Alice. Yell at Bob and Charlie for being in the women's bathroom, then run out red-faced as she realizes she's in the men's bathroom.

Compare Right Behind Me (another situation where Charlie and Bob are unaware of Alex's presence), and What You Are in the Dark (a person's private behavior differs from their public behavior). Sometimes turns out to be Out-of-Context Eavesdropping. Compare and contrast Next Stall Shenanigans.

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Examples:

Advertising

• In the UK, there was an ad for a financial planning service that showed two men in an office bathroom talking about a colleague's forthcoming redundancy (which he hadn't been informed about yet.) He comes out of an occupied bathroom stall, but because of his financial plan he remains unfazed, leading the other men to wonder if he has heard something about their jobs.
• There was a commercial (for deodorant?) with two bridesmaids freshening their makeup for a wedding rehearsal. They complain about how ugly their dresses are, but snicker that at least they aren't marrying Kevin. The stall door behind them opens, revealing the rather distraught-looking bride. The commercial ends with the bride back in the stall audibly sobbing as the red-faced bridesmaids try to convince her they were talking about a completely different Kevin.

Anime & Manga

• In Digimon Adventure (the dub), Taichi and Agumon talk about Ogremon in the bathroom of a "hotel" they stay at. In this case, Ogremon merely suppresses giggles as he is about to ambush them.
• Played with in Slam Dunk. Hisashi Mitsui is just done taking a dump right before the Shoyo match and overhears one of the Shoyo players saying out loud that Mitsui will only score five points in the game. An upset Mitsui gets outta the stall to find out who unknowingly insulted his skills, but only sees the player's back (just enough to know he wears the #5 jersey). He still takes it in the It's Personal way, and when he finally remembers who is the guy who said crap about him (his old rival Kazushi Hasegawa, who unlike others knows Mitsui is an ex-delinquent), he engages in a sports duel with him.
• In Eden of the East, the main character Saki overhears two employees gossiping about the idiot that sat in the lunch room for two hours after a job interview, so the company had someone spill soup on her to get her to leave... while she is cleaning off the soup that someone spilled on her.
• Zatch Bell!: A delinquent threatening Gash tells him Kiyomaro won't save him because he thinks everyone else isn't worth spit, which is true enough to demoralize Kiyomaro. It then becomes an inversion when Gash forcefully declares his faith in Kiyo. But this doesn't happen in a bathroom but instead Kiyomaro is hiding behind the door to the school roof but he is supposed to be in bathroom instead of listening. He only makes his entrance when Gash gets imaginative explaining what could be taking him so long.
• Bunny Drop had Daikichi just about to enter the bathroom when he hears employees from the department he's about to transfer out of badmouth him and say he's abandoning them. Daikichi considers calling them out and knows he's well within his rights to but decides to just let it drop.
• Bitter Virgin had a variation of the concept - Yuzu overheard Kazuki bullying Aikawa from behind a bathroom stall.
• In Kimi ni Todoke, this is how rumours are found out about. Sawako's first appearance is in the girl's bathroom, even.
• In With the Light, Sachiko is in a bathroom stall when she overhears two parents complaining about a disruption caused by one of Hikaru's panics.
• While by a vending machine, Onodera Ritsu of Sekai-ichi Hatsukoi overhears his co-workers talking about him benefiting from nepotism which promptly leads him to quit.
• A variation happens in Failed Princesses during a flashback in Chapter 33. Kurokawa is in a bathroom stall when she overhears some girls gossiping about and badmouthing Fujishiro, a beautiful but vain gyaru Kurokawa admired despite not liking her personality. Kurokawa notes that the other girls should have checked to see if anyone was in there.

Asian Animation

• Happy Heroes: A variation happens in season 10 episode 37, where Smart S. overhears Big M. and Little M. discussing their new evil plot while doing his business in a public bathroom.

Fan Fiction

• In Lady of the House Hermione overhears several girls discussing how she's stuck-up, swotty and plain. After crying in the stall, she decides to get revenge by dressing up for the next Hogsmeade visit.
• A Thing of Vikings has a variation; Esther is reading and translating a hundred-year-old book in the synagogue by the main altar when two women enter the other side of the room and take the opportunity to gossip — about her.

Films — Live-Action

• It happens in Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest. Well, it's a boat, and there's a kiss, but the gist of it is, Will sees Elizabeth kiss Jack and proceeds to act like a teenage girl afterwards.
• Happens at the fan convention in Galaxy Quest. Jason Nesmith, overhears some guys talking about how his fellow cast members really do hate him for his showboating and ego. He walks out and is in a bad mood the rest of the day, and is even mean to a kind fan.
• In Trading Places, the Duke Brothers conclude their bet in the executive washroom. Before talking one is savvy about this trope and checks for feet in the stalls. When they reveal their ploy, Eddie Murphy's character is in a stall but he lifted his feet first. Mortimer says to Randolph, "Do you really believe I would let a nigger run our family business, Randolph?", revealing the brothers to be not just scumbags, but racist scumbags.
• In Lawrence of Arabia, when the title character is going through a personal crisis over his cultural belonging, he awkwardly attempts to chat up two other officers using typical British niceties, only for one of them to state to the other that he "lays it on a bit thick" the minute they think he is out of earshot.
• In the movie Scream (1996), Sidney goes to the bathroom and hears two classmates speculate in the stalls on how she may be the killer. Actually, it's one classmate — the other is against that idea and calls it "pathetic," a conclusion that Sidney draws when she leaves the bathroom.
• In the adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing in Shakespea Re Told, Beatrice, sitting on the toilet smoking a cigarette, overhears her friends gossiping about how she really can't afford to be so rude to men considering how unattractive she is. This is a subversion, however; they are well aware she can hear them and are trying to make her behave better to Benedick.
• A Double Subversion appears in 9 to 5: early in the movie, Violet advises Judy to check the bathroom stalls before gossiping in the ladies' room, lest Roz, the boss's prime stooge, be listening in. Later in the film, Violet, Judy, and Doralee discuss Violet's accidental near-poisoning of their boss, after Violet assures the others that she's already checked the stalls for Roz's shoes. Cut to Roz in one of the stalls with her feet pulled up out of view, taking notes on a roll of toilet paper.
• Used in RoboCop (1987) when young corporate upstart Bob Morton mocks Corrupt Corporate Executive Dick Jones, claiming his reputation of being utterly ruthless is just "a smokescreen." Not only does Dick then confront him (after everyone else has fled the bathroom in fear), but he later has Morton brutally murdered in his home.
• Happens to Kate Bosworth's character in Blue Crush, where she overhears random women referring to her rich football-player boyfriend as a guy who likes to slum. The girl who looks embarrassed to be caught gossiping gets her shoes.
• In The Great Outdoors, Dan Akroyd's character claims to have overheard John Candy's character drunkenly insult in him in a bathroom, but the story is actually a lie used to guilt Candy into giving him money.
• At the end of The Emperor's Club, the grown-up Sedgewick Bell cheats at a rematch of a trivia contest he's already cheated at the first time around, when he was a kid at school. His old teacher, who thought he'd changed, confronts him about it in the bathroom afterwards and he starts babbling away about how no one cares about morals in the real world, nice guys finish last, etc. A toilet flushes and Sedgewick's young son emerges from the stall, thoroughly disillusioned.
• In a movie called Sorority Row two of the girls start talking about the dead friend no one was supposed to know about in the middle of the bathroom. Surprisingly, they weren't alone. All this led to the death of the unlucky eavesdropper.
• Odd Girl Out: In this Lifetime original movie, a large group of teens, after one has seen Vanessa in a bathroom stall, are insulting her while Vanessa is hiding in the stall.
• Lean on Me. The mayor and the fire code director discuss how to get the principal out of his position in the bathroom. A teacher (a nerdy white guy no less) manages to avoid being caught by keeping his feet off the floor and make it appear no one is in the bathroom but them.
• She's All That: Dean Sampson tells his friends of his plan to score with Laney, unaware that her best friend Jesse is in the stall listening.
• In S1m0ne, when Victor Taransky is in the cinema bathroom washing his face after the screening of Sunrise Sunset, he overhears three guys commenting that the film was "artificial", and he assumes they are talking about S1m0ne and leaves the bathroom. It's revealed they're talking about the period setting of the film, and did enjoy Simone's performance.
• Millie: Millie enters the Wondrous Ladies Room only to hear another woman making catty comments about her. The other woman then reveals to Millie that Tommy has another girlfriend.
• Booksmart: The instigating moment of the plot is when Molly is in a school bathroom stall and overhears three classmates gossiping about how she does nothing but study. When she confronts them and brags about her future success, she's shocked to learn that they've managed to secure futures just as bright as hers while also maintaining an active social life.
• Detention: After arriving at school, Riley is in a stall in the girls bathroom when she hears Ione talking to her friends and calling her a loser and asking where she gets off being interested in Clapton, who is Ione's boyfriend.
• Angel (1984): Molly is in the girls locker room when she overhears two of her classmates saying that Ric is telling everyone in the school that she is a hooker (which is true) and that she had sex with him and his two buddies last night (which is a lie).
• Glory Road: Inverted. As several white coaches and reporters inside the bathroom stalls make racist comments about the Miners, one of them steps out and sees Haskins standing by the sink with a Death Glare.
• Sadie from If You Could Say It in Words quit acting after a disastrous audition in which the judges kept reading and talking instead of watching her. In the bathroom afterwards, she heard them laughing about how lousy she was and accusing her of using the Casting Couch to get the audition.
• Embrace of the Vampire (2013): More a case of 'bathroom of overheard insults', but Charlotte is in the bathroom of her dorm room when she hears resident bitch Eliza making bitchy comments about her to her roommate Nicole, despite Eliza never having met Charlotte.
• In Mirror Mirror (1990), Beta Bitch Kim is in a toilet stall when she overhears Megan confessing to the 'murder-by-magic' of Alpha Bitch Charleen. This ends badly for Kim.

Literature

• Harry Potter
  • Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets has a case of "Bathroom Stall of Overheard Death". Moaning Myrtle overheard Tom Riddle open the way to the Chamber of Secrets in parseltongue, but when she opened the door to confront him over being in the girls bathroom she ended up killed by the basilisk's deadly gaze.
  • Later in Half-Blood Prince, Hermione overhears Romilda Vane and others talking about slipping Harry a love potion in the girls bathroom.
• In one of Robin Jones Gunn's Christy Miller books, Christy is in the bathroom when she overhears the popular girls, who've been trying to win her over, discussing (between bathroom stalls) the fact that they've been lying about smuggling liquor on a high school ski trip, and using Christy as their dupe.
• In The Clique, Dylan feels the need to gossip about the two stars of a movie at a TV talk show set. The only problem? The co-host's mic was on in the bathroom and everybody heard it.
• In one of The Baby-Sitters Club books, Claudia is accused of cheating on a math test that she did well on. Later, while sitting in the bathroom, the girl she supposedly cheated off of comes in with her friends. Claudia over hears her bragging about cheating since she knew Claudia's genius sister had been helping her study.
• In the book Katie Dot Com, Katie hears two girls gossiping about her in the bathroom, one girl claiming that she saw a positive pregnancy test belonging to her, and another claiming Katie aborted the child with a coat-hanger. (Neither of which are true, of course.)
• What Happened To Lani Garver features the protagonist in a bathroom overhearing others non-malevolently referring to her as "that cancer girl".
• In the little-known novel Lees Vine the main character Lee hangs out in the toilets during lesson times specifically to overhear this kind of stuff and put it on his blog.
• In Lois Duncan's Dont Look Behind You, April/Valerie ducks out of the movie the kids are seeing and visits the bathroom. While she's in there, two girls from the group come in gossiping about her, take the stalls on either side of the one she's in, and continue to talk. Despite the theater only showing one movie and having one set of restrooms, and despite a stall being occupied when they come in right after they saw April/Valerie leave the single theater, it never occurs to them that they might want to be discreet.
• In the book Middle School Blues, main character Cindy sees the principal making out with the English teacher, and immediately drags her best friend Becca into the bathroom to tell her about what she'd seen. Someone in the stalls overhears them and spreads the news throughout the school, causing both Cindy and Becca to get in trouble. This leads to Cindy creating her "Middle School Survival Rule #5: Don't tell secrets in the restroom."
• A variant in All The Weyrs Of Pern: Jaxom and Sebell get a drunk friend to the toilets just in time, and Jaxom stays with the now passed-out drunk while Sebell goes to get assistance. While in the stall, Jaxom overhears some men plotting his "accidental death."
• The titular character of Audrey, Wait! overhears her ex-boyfriend's band's manager trash-talking them in a bathroom stall just before she goes live on television. As Audrey comments in her narration, it's easy to ask why a character on TV or in a book that overhears something like this doesn't do anything about it, but in real life, you'd probably freeze up and be unable to do much about it, either.
• In a Sweet Valley Twins book, Alpha Bitch Lila Fowler and one of her co-conspirators discuss the underhanded lengths to which they are going to go keep tomboy Amy Sutton off of the school's cheerleading squad. This includes sending her and her friend Ken Matthews (who's trying out for the basketball team) letters, supposedly from each other, which deride each person's plans and abilities. After they leave, an infuriated Elizabeth Wakefield, Amy's best friend, comes out of one of the stalls, obviously having overheard everything.
• Social Queue: At a wedding, Zoe becomes overwhelmed and hides in a bathroom stall. There she hears her childhood friend Gabe's ex Brooke talking about how obsessed Zoe is with Gabe and accusing her of making things weird. Zoe, who was already worried that Gabe only put up with her out of pity over her autism, flees the wedding in shame.

Live-Action TV

• 2 Broke Girls did a reversal of this (in which the person in the bathroom stall is the one doing the insulting) in the season 1 finale. Caroline, while changing in a bathroom stall, starts talking to Max about Martha Stewart insulting her. Max then sees Martha Stewart exit the stall next to Caroline's and hurriedly tries to stop Caroline from talking, with no success.
• In Ally McBeal, you really can hear everything at these toilets.
  • It was a unisex bathroom, so characters could overhear characters of the opposite sex as well (in nearly every freaking episode). With a unisex bathroom and a cluelessly misogynistic boss in an office full of mostly female lawyers, one expects they'd be drowning in sexual harassment suits.
  • It gets to a point where characters automatically check the stalls when they go in there to have a private conversation. Once Ally did this to find the secretary had pulled her legs up.
  • One episode has Georgia dragging Billy in for a talk, checking under the stalls. As soon as their fight is done, a toilet flushes and Ally exits a stall, clearly lying about having pulled her legs up.
  • The co-owner of the firm had even built himself a secret room behind one of the stalls! Sure, he used it just to have a place to think about stuff by himself, but that still doesn't change the fact that the compartment would have been some serious lawsuit-material if a client or coworker ever sat in that stall while the guy got out...
• Battlestar Galactica (2003):
  • A twisted version when Laura Roslin asks Baltar to become her vice president upon a chance encounter in one of Cloud Nine's bathroom. After their conversation, it's revealed that Baltar was making out with a sexy female reporter in a stall. Did we mention that the Galactica has co-ed bathrooms?
  • Later, in the final season Boomer, while escaping Galactica, knocks Athena out and dresses up as her, then leaves her bound and gagged in a bathroom stall. Helo shows up, wanting to give Athena a "gift" before she goes on a six-day recon. Athena wakes up just in time to watch the show.
• My So-Called Life: In the bathroom, two girls debate (well, one talks and the other tries to respond, but gets word stampeded) on whether to tell the main character something really shocking, when who should walk in on the debate but... the main character.
• Seinfeld does an odd variation with Jerry's deaf girlfriend.
• In the pilot of Slings & Arrows, Oliver overhears a gay couple in the next stall giggling about how old he is.
• In the online comic of the show Heroes, this happens to Candice during her backstory, back when she was in high school and less than pretty.
• Veronica Mars has the girls' bathroom at Neptune High being Veronica's "office" - unfortunately, this doesn't stop other girls from coming in and trash-talking her occasionally (as befits her status as the local outcast).
• In Plain Sight: a bit of an inversion. Marshall is guarding a witness who's using the bathroom. From inside the stall, the witness starts complaining about Mary. Unbeknownst to him, while he's ranting, Mary has quietly come up to the open bathroom door and heard everything.
• In Crossing Jordan, Nigel and Bug are caught gossiping about their coworkers on countless occasions, usually by the object of said gossip.
• Scrubs has an interesting variation. Elliot winds up in the men's room because the women's room is out of order. While in the stall she overhears Dr. Kelso talking on his cellphone and complaining about how her public revealing of his age has caused the hospital board to force him to retire. Elliot resolves to help him keep his job, but he claims he doesn't want her help. Later, she learns that cellphones can't get reception in that particular bathroom, and that the conversation was a ruse - it was Kelso's way of indirectly pleading for her help. (He also informs her she shouldn't be proud of the 9.2 butt rating she had received in the stall. It was out of 100.)
• In an episode of Full House, the entire family has a secret meeting in DJ's room to complain about Danny's neat freak sensibilities. Little did they know that Danny was in DJ's closet the whole time installing shelf paper.
• In the second season premiere of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles a T-1001 disguises herself as a urinal to eavesdrop on men's room gossip. The person who insults her doesn't live very long.
• Important Things with Demetri Martin takes this to the extreme, with two guys using urinals discussing their co-workers. As they bring up their names, the camera cuts to said co-worker (or boss!) in one of the stalls. The last stall has a pimp with two prostitutes, flashing lights and techno music. Another stall has the entirety of Cirque du Soleil in it.
• More than once on Cheers.
• In an episode of NewsRadio, Dave ducks under his desk for a moment to fix the phone line. One of his underlings sees the empty desk and assumes Dave to be out of the office. Before Dave has a chance to make his presence known, the entire staff has gathered in his office to let out some steam by mocking and criticizing him.
• In Hannah Montana, Miley Stewart defies this trope by checking for feet under the doors before talking about stuff pertaining to her life as Hannah.
• An amusing variant in the pilot of City Homicide: Detective Jen Mapplethorpe is reassigned to Homicide under a different superior, DSS Sparkes, who quickly reveals how much he respects her by assigning her to filing and getting him coffee. She walks into the bathroom complaining aloud about Sparkes, only to be overheard by his superior, Superintendent Waverley, in the bathroom stall. Waverley privately agrees with her, resulting in Jen returning to Stanley's squad.
• Happens on a semi-regular basis in Waterloo Road, as lampshaded in the page quote.
• Variation: In Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip, Simon and Tom leave the room to discuss how Simon is so good at handling reporters and mention everything they don't want Martha, the reporter in the room, to know. When they walk back in, she reveals Simon was still wearing his microphone, and asks for more information.
• Cra$h & Burn had a very deliberate aversion. Jimmy is smart enough to know that, in his office, the coworkers would gladly eavesdrop on bathroom conversations and backstab you with the information. When he has to talk to Papo in the bathroom, he opens every bathroom stall to make sure that it does not happen. The topic of their conversation could not only get them fired and thrown in jail but also likely killed
• Used to good effect in Cagney & Lacey. As the only women in the precinct, they had private conversations in the Ladies' Room in every episode. On the day they were giving a famous actress a ride-along, naturally they're in the bathroom when discussing how annoying and phony she is. This was probably the first time in the show's history that their conversation was interrupted by the sound of a toilet flushing.
• The number of times where high-level political intrigue is discussed in the loo on The Thick of It would seem to make this a natural conclusion... but the only time it actually happens is in a deleted scene, where Malcolm invokes the trope (he says he sends junior press officers to "collect urinal intelligence" while "harnessing the power of the Third Eye").
• A MADtv (1995) skit had two bitchy women complaining about a co-worker. When they realize that she's in one of the stalls, they resolve to kill her because they can't bear the embarrassment. Again, they fail to realize that she can hear them. She quickly disguises herself with toilet paper (a literal Paper-Thin Disguise) and sneaks out.
• Inverted in ER. Although two people are musing about a coworker's erratic behavior, they are genuinely concerned, rather than being derisive. But when said coworker drops a syringe, thus revealing her presence in the bathroom, it's she who is embarrassed, realizing that it now looks like her behavior is the result of drug use. (it isn't)
• CSI NY: A girl hiding a bathroom stall and overhearing two cheerleaders insulting her becomes a vital plot point in "Do or Die".
• House of Anubis: The bathrooms in this series tend to be used as places for drama, and so this trope came into play at least once. At one point, Amber was in the stall when Patricia and Mara were talking about her relationship with Mick, and she ended up overhearing that Mara, her best friend, had a crush on Mick- her boyfriend- and then Mara went on to say that Amber and Mick had nothing in common. It wasn't exactly an insult, but Amber did see it as a betrayal and was pretty hurt by it.
• In the first episode of Faking It, Lauren overhears Karma and Amy discussing their plan to gain popularity and later attempts to expose them. In the season finale, Lauren is again in a bathroom when she overhears Amy get rejected after she confesses her feeling to Karma. When Lauren later explains to Amy that she was in the bathroom and overheard, Amy refers to that being her "signature move".
• The pilot for Designated Survivor has Seth Wright in a stall, moaning about how, following a huge terrorist attack, low-level cabinet officer Tom Kirkman is now President of the United States. He rants on how Kirkman is totally unready, has no chance and should just do everyone a favor and resign. He exits... and discovers the guy he's been ranting at is Kirkman. To his credit, Seth backs up he meant what he said and Kirkman replies he may be right but right now, he's all everyone's got.
• Subverted on an episode of Touched by an Angel. A mayoral candidate overhears two teenage girls discussing how one is going to "get back" at a teacher—a longtime friend of hers—for a poor grade. When the teacher in question is promptly arrested for statutory rape, the woman immediately assumes it's a False Rape Accusation based on what she heard. Then she gets a copy of the girl's complaint and is horrified to realize that the girl was telling the truth. (The girl quoted the exact pick-up lines he had used on her years ago.)
• Played for Drama on Degrassi. Two students after happily humiliating a student who was hated by the entire school go into the bathroom and discover the student in there and lie about who actually committed the prank and what does that create? A school Shooting.
• After giving a horrible motivational speech at a steel factory, Beatrice and Eugenie of The Windsors overhear workers insulting them in the bathroom. However, Eugenie decides the fact that both the executives and the laborers are able to agree about how horrible they are means their speech was successful, because at least they finally do agree on something when they'd previously been at odds over everything.
• All Saints: On Terri Sullivan's first day in the Emergency Department, she overhears Jessica and another nurse mocking her for being out of her depth after years as a Ward Nurse and a Nursing Unit Manager. Terri throws Jessica's words back at her later, after a weak attempt at empathising with Dr. Campion's treatment of her.
• Friends: Phoebe pulls Rachel into a dressing room cubicle to ask why she's trying to avoid spending time with Joey's new girlfriend Charlie. Rachel eventually admits it's because she's developed a crush on Joey. When Rachel goes to leave she sees Charlie walking out of the next cubicle and is horrified she might have heard everything. When she finally works up the courage to talk to Charlie it turns out that Charlie did hear the conversation, but misunderstood and thinks it's Phoebe who has the crush on Joey.

Video Games

• Happened in the first of the games by Purple Moon, and again in the books.
• In the Truth path of Misao, the title character overhears several girls talking about her, laughing about an embarrassing message that was posted up on the bulletin board. One of the girls defends her, and is nice to Misao after she comes out. However, Misao is still upset after they leave, because she's sure Saotome was the one who posted the text in the first place.
• During the prologue of Yakuza: Like a Dragon, Ichiban overhears a conversation between Yumeno, the hostess that his friend Masato wishes to woo, and the man who's her actual Sugar Daddy in which she disparagingly mocks Masato for his criminal roots and states that she's going to milk him for all he's worth. Afterwards it turns out that Masato himself overheard them, with this event having a lot of ramifications towards the rest of the game.

Webcomics

• Bobwhite: As Ivy is washing her hands, she hears some other employees from the place she interns talking about her.
• Marry My Husband: In the original timeline, Jiwon was tricked into attending her class reunion by Sumin, and eventually she ended up hiding in the bathroom; while in the stall, she overheard Jiye and her friends insult her for supposedly being a bully and a False Friend to Sumin, causing her to cry and stay in there long after eveyone else leaves. In the new timeline, she once again hides in the stall and listens to them insult her; this time, however, she confronts them and chews them out over how they blindly believed Sumin's lies.

Web Original

• In "Bikini Beach: All Tucked Up" (a Bikini Beach/Tuck Saga crossover), Kim does one of these using Bikini Beach's restroom.
  Kim: [thinking] Eavesdropping in restrooms was naughty, wicked, and damned useful if you wanted to hear certain things.

Western Animation

• As Told by Ginger:
  • A variation occurred in one episode when Macie overheard two high school girls plotting to deface Courtney at a party.
  • Played straight in another episode, wherein the titular Ginger overhears Courtney and Miranda gossiping about how Miranda wants to hook up with Ginger's friend Darren, and that "[Ginger] will be the first to go".
  • The episode "Fast Reputation" has Ginger overhearing a couple of girls gossiping about the rumors of her interactions with a high school bad boy. Ginger then tries to drown them out by flushing the toilet multiple times.
• Hey Arnold! uses this one with Helga a few times (and Phoebe). The first one is in the episode "School Play," when Helga decides that she wants to be Juliet in the school play; later it's done twice in "April Fools Day" between Helga, Phoebe and Gerald.
• In Archer, the bathroom is a common place for secrets to be overheard and Zany Schemes to be plotted.
  Mallory: Why is it that every time I need to go to the bathroom you people are in here?
• In the Arthur special Arthur, It's Only Rock and Roll, this is how Francine finds out that she's not popular since quitting the band.
• South Park: In one episode, Kyle hears Cartman and Butters discuss an embarrassing video that Cartman put on YouTube by accident and called him out on it. Cartman accused him of being there on purpose, and made sure no one was there the second time he did this.
• In the Family Guy episode where Lois and Peter switch places with Meg and Chris to teach them a lesson and wind up learning that they're actually the ones in over their heads, Peter ends up being fired in favor of Chris, while Lois's comeuppance comes in the form of high school bullying, illustrated by Connie and her friends gossiping in the bathroom followed by Lois coming out in tears.

Real Life

• The scene in Galaxy Quest was supposedly based on something that actually happened to William Shatner at a Star Trek convention.
• McGill University has a tradition of writing insults or other facts concerning the elusive and mysterious Sean Turner on bathroom walls.

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