Last updated on March 6th, 2026 at 05:19 am
You trusted them. Your sister, your best friend, your mother. And then one day, they started repeating the narcissist’s exact words back to you. “You’re overreacting.” “That’s just how they are.” “What did you do to make them so angry?”
The people you counted on became the narcissist’s messengers, carrying lies, isolating you from support, and reporting back like trained informants. In psychology, this has a name borrowed from The Wizard of Oz: flying monkeys. They are the narcissist’s enablers, family members, friends, or colleagues recruited to carry out abuse by proxy so the narcissist never has to get their hands dirty. Some believe they’re helping. Others are narcissists themselves who feed off the control. Either way, their actions give the abuser emotional validation while leaving you with depression, anxiety, and symptoms of PTSD.
When the people you trust side with your abuser without warning, that’s triangulation, a manipulation tactic built to discredit you and keep you trapped in the narcissistic abuse cycle. And if you’re reading this, you already know at least one.
This post names what happened. Not advice. Not recovery steps. Recognition of the narcissistic abuse you lived through, the gaslighting by proxy, the smear campaigns, the betrayals from people who should have protected you. Because you’ve spent long enough wondering if you were the problem.
TL;DR
Flying monkeys are individuals manipulated by narcissists to spread lies, isolate victims, and participate in gaslighting.
Narcissists recruit flying monkeys through charm, flattery, false narratives, and exploiting codependency tendencies.
Flying monkeys execute smear campaigns using social media, fake reviews, and victim-blaming to destroy reputations.
Family members, workplace colleagues, and even children become flying monkeys through fear and misplaced loyalty.
Breaking free requires setting firm boundaries, seeking trauma-informed therapy, and building supportive validation networks.
What Are Narcissist’s Flying Monkeys?
Flying monkeys are the people a narcissist recruits to do their bidding. They spread false narratives, gaslight victims on the narcissist’s behalf, and act as arms of the narcissist’s control. What clinicians call abuse by proxy, a hallmark of narcissistic personality disorder (NPD) where the emotional abuse gets outsourced.
The narcissist gets to keep their public charm intact while the flying monkeys deliver the cruelty.
Most people think of flying monkeys as one thing. They’re not. According to Narcissistic Abuse Rehab’s research on benevolent and malevolent flying monkey types, there are two distinct categories, and once you see which ones you’re dealing with, everything clicks into place.
Benevolent Flying Monkeys: Unwitting Enablers
Benevolent flying monkeys believe, with their whole chest, that they’re helping. These are the codependent family members, the people-pleasers, the friends with a fawn response so ingrained they cannot say no to the narcissist. They bought the false narrative. “I’m worried about [your name]” was all it took for them to start making concerned phone calls on the narcissist’s behalf.
A client of mine spent three years confused about why her mother kept passing along her ex-husband’s messages after the divorce.
“He’s heartbroken,” her mother would say. “He just wants to talk.”
Her mother wasn’t malicious. She was manipulated. The narcissist had spent years love bombing her mother with attention, gifts, and the kind of charm that makes you feel bad about yourself when you try to set boundaries. By the time my client left the marriage, her mother’s loyalty was split, and the narcissist exploited that split like a crowbar.
Benevolent flying monkeys cause real damage, but they don’t know they’re part of a narcissistic collective. They think they’re peacemakers.
Malevolent Flying Monkeys: Willing Accomplices
Malevolent flying monkeys know full well what they’re doing. Some are narcissists themselves. Clinical literature describes this as the flying monkey narcissist, someone who aligns with the dominant narcissist for social capital, power, or the satisfaction of watching someone get destroyed.
These are the enablers who enjoy the drama. They don’t need to be tricked. They volunteer.
In my consultations, I’ve seen narcissistic sibling dynamics where siblings fed information back to a narcissistic parent on a regular basis, not because they were afraid, but because their golden child status depended on it. They had something to gain.
If the benevolent flying monkey is a puppet, the malevolent flying monkey is a co-pilot.
These two types, side by side, form what researchers call a narcissistic collective, an entourage built around the narcissist that works as a single unit of control. The narcissist sits at the center. The benevolent flying monkeys provide social proof and legitimacy. The malevolent ones do the dirty work.
And the victim stands alone against all of them. Abuse by proxy running as a system, not a one-off behavior.
How Overt Narcissists Recruit Flying Monkeys
The recruitment process is not random. It runs on two forces: the narcissist’s charm and the narcissist’s rage.
Triangulation at its core: the narcissist positions themselves between you and the people you trust, then turns those people into weapons. Most content about flying monkey recruitment only talks about charm. That tells half the story.
Charm Offensive and the False Narrative
Overt narcissists are performers. Their public persona is loud, generous, funny, successful. Everyone loves them. And that public charm is the most powerful recruitment tool they have.
Before flying monkeys ever get involved, the narcissist has already built a false narrative. They’ve cast themselves as the victim. What Dr. Jennifer Freyd’s research at the University of Oregon calls DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) is the playbook here. According to an in-depth analysis of DARVO and how narcissists use it, this pattern allows the narcissist to rewrite the story entirely.
You’re not the person being abused. You’re the unstable one. The difficult one. The one everyone should worry about.
I’ve seen this narcissist playing victim dynamic play out dozens of times. The narcissist calls your mutual friends sounding devastated:
“I’m really worried about [victim]. They’ve been acting so erratic lately.” “I’ve tried everything, but they just won’t listen to reason.” “Did you know what [victim] did to me? I’m devastated.” “You know I would never do that. [Victim] is making things up.”
A peer-reviewed PMC study found that grandiose narcissists stay overconfident in their version of events even after clear evidence contradicts them. They don’t just lie. They believe their own narrative, and that conviction is what makes flying monkey recruitment work so well.
The narcissist sounds believable because, to them, the false narrative IS real.
Fear-Based Recruitment Through Rage and Intimidation
Nobody talks about this part. Overt narcissists don’t only recruit through charm. They recruit through fear.
Explosive rage, screaming, slamming, threatening, punishing anyone who questions them. That’s how people fall in line. Narcissistic injury, any perceived criticism, any challenge to their authority, triggers the rage that can lead to full narcissistic collapse. And once people have witnessed that rage, they learn fast.
Siding with the narcissist is not loyalty. It is self-preservation.
In my experience coaching over 1,400 survivors, some of the most committed flying monkeys I’ve encountered weren’t sweet-talked into the role. They were terrified into it. A narcissistic boss screams at one person in a meeting, and the entire office goes quiet. That dead air? That’s flying monkey behavior. Nobody will speak up for you because they’ve seen what happens to people who do.
Why People Become Narcissist’s Flying Monkeys
You’ve asked yourself at some point: how could they side with the abuser? You might have even hated them for it. That anger makes sense. But the reasons people become flying monkeys are more layered than blind loyalty.
Start with pure self-preservation. When an overt narcissist’s explosive temper can turn on anyone, staying in their good graces feels like survival. A Psychology Today analysis of flying monkey motivations and roles identifies self-preservation, rescuing behavior, drama-seeking, and narcissistic traits as the primary drivers. People who have watched the narcissist rage, people who know what happens behind closed doors, choose the path of least resistance. Not because they agree with the abuse, but because they’re afraid of becoming the next target.
Then there’s codependency. People with a sociotropic personality, what researchers describe as an extreme orientation toward pleasing others, are natural targets for recruitment. Their fawn response, a trauma response where the person defaults to appeasing the threat, makes them say yes before they’ve even thought it through.
Dr. Jennifer Freyd’s research names something else: betrayal blindness. This is the psychological process where someone ignores abuse on purpose because acknowledging it would threaten a relationship they depend on. Your friend sees the bruises. Your sister hears the yelling through the walls. But facing the narcissist’s cruelty would mean confronting the fact that their own relationship with the narcissist is built on a false persona.
So they look away.
Psychology Today points to another reason that’s harder to swallow: some flying monkeys enjoy the drama. They get narcissistic supply of their own from the chaos. They’re not victims of manipulation. They’re participants.
And then there’s cognitive dissonance. The narcissist is charming, generous, and admired in public. The victim says they’re cruel behind closed doors. For people who haven’t witnessed the private cruelty, choosing to believe the public version is easier. It protects their worldview.
I’m still learning which factor hits hardest for which survivors. But in my years of coaching, what I can say is this: once you see the gears turning, the betrayal doesn’t sting less, but it stops being a mystery.
What makes overt narcissist flying monkeys different from other enablers is the fear factor. With a covert narcissist, people become flying monkeys because they can’t see the abuse. With an overt narcissist? Most of them can see it. They’ve heard the yelling. They’ve watched the intimidation. They know.
They chose the narcissist anyway because siding with the person who rages is safer than siding with the person being raged at. Your pain was visible. Their fear was bigger.
Flying Monkeys and the Narcissist’s Smear Campaign
A narcissistic smear campaign is not gossip. It is organized destruction, one of the most recognizable plays in narcissistic abuse.
The narcissist constructs a narrative, positions flying monkeys as distribution channels, and launches a coordinated assault on your reputation through triangulation. The goal is credibility destruction and isolation. If nobody believes you, nobody helps you.
Character Assassination and the False Witness Role
Flying monkeys become the narcissist’s mouthpieces. They repeat the narcissist’s version of events as though they witnessed them firsthand. In family court and custody disputes, this becomes the false witness role, where flying monkeys provide coached testimony that paints you as unstable, aggressive, or unfit.
I had a client whose narcissistic ex-partner recruited three mutual friends to write statements for a custody hearing. Each statement contained the same phrases, the same framing, the same accusations. They hadn’t witnessed anything. They’d been told what to say.
And the court treated their words as independent corroboration.
That’s the power of flying monkeys in a smear campaign. One narcissist becomes five “witnesses.” A clinical case study on flying monkey impact published by Therapy Trainings demonstrated how these dynamics compound trauma, showing that victims targeted by proxy abuse through multiple enablers experienced significantly deeper isolation and self-doubt.
DARVO: How Flying Monkeys Deliver the Reversed Narrative
DARVO doesn’t stop with the narcissist. Flying monkeys carry the reversed narrative forward. They approach you with the narcissist’s story already absorbed as truth: you are the aggressor. The narcissist is the victim. Every conversation becomes a blame-shifting exercise.
“They’re just worried about you.” “What did you do to make them so angry?” “They would never do that, I’ve known them for years.”
These phrases aren’t random. They are DARVO in action, carried by proxies. The narcissist denies. The flying monkey attacks your version of events. And the victim-offender roles get reversed so fast that you start doubting your own perception. That’s gaslighting and victim blaming by proxy, two core traits of NPD-driven abuse systems.
A smear campaign isn’t something that happens to you once. It’s a machine that runs as long as the narcissist has flying monkeys willing to carry the message. And it’s one of the most isolating aspects of narcissistic abuse because it turns your own support system into another arm of the narcissist’s control.
Flying Monkeys in the Narcissistic Abuse Cycle
Flying monkeys don’t show up at random. They appear at specific points in the idealize-devalue-discard cycle because the narcissist deploys them on purpose.
Reinforcing Idealization and Devaluation
During the idealization phase, flying monkeys reinforce the narcissist’s false persona.
“You’re so lucky to have them.” “They’re amazing. Everyone thinks so.”
This social proof locks you into the relationship because everyone around you validates the narcissist’s charm. Walking away from someone “everyone loves” makes you look irrational.
As the narcissist shifts into devaluation, flying monkeys shift with them. The same people who told you how lucky you were now echo the narcissist’s criticism.
“Maybe you are too sensitive.” “They said you’ve been difficult lately.”
The narcissist’s voice multiplies. It’s no longer one person telling you you’re the problem. It’s four. It’s six. It’s your entire social circle. Triangulation at its worst. You start walking on eggshells not just around the narcissist, but around everyone the narcissist has recruited.
Once the discard hits, flying monkeys provide the narcissist with social proof for the scapegoat story. “Everyone agrees you’re the problem” becomes the final justification. The narcissist isn’t abandoning you. They’re the reasonable one who “tried everything.” The flying monkeys confirm it.
A Wiley-published study on grandiose narcissism shows that this dominance-seeking behavior extends to social networks, not just individual relationships. The narcissist builds a system of enablers that props up their superiority and punishes anyone who threatens it.
Hoovering: Flying Monkeys as the Narcissist’s Lure
After the discard, when you’ve at last started to walk away, flying monkeys become the narcissist’s hoovering tool. They arrive with messages meant to reel you back in: promises of change, guilt about leaving, reminders of how good things used to be.
Intermittent reinforcement, passed through human proxies. The narcissist doesn’t need to contact you at all. Flying monkeys do it for them, and each message reactivates the trauma bond. Understanding how a narcissist reacts when you stop chasing them explains why the hoovering escalates through proxies once direct access is cut off.
You left the narcissist, but the narcissist’s network hasn’t left you.
Last month, someone in my group shared that her ex-partner’s mother called her fourteen times in one week after she went no contact. Each call contained the same script: “He’s changed. He misses you. He’s in counseling now.”
The ex wasn’t in counseling. The mother had been given a story and a job. That’s hoovering through flying monkeys, and it works because the message comes from someone you trust.
Phrases Flying Monkeys Use on Narcissist’s Victims
If you’ve been targeted by flying monkeys, you’ve heard at least five of these. Not paraphrased. Word for word.
Minimization: “That’s just how they are.” “They didn’t mean it that way.” “You’re making this into a bigger deal than it is.” These phrases erase your experience. They tell you the abuse wasn’t real enough to count.
Victim blaming: “What did you do to provoke them?” “If you just did what they wanted, this wouldn’t happen.” “You must have done something to deserve this.” The blame gets shifted onto you. The narcissist’s rage becomes your fault.
Guilt-tripping: “You’re tearing the family apart.” “They’re heartbroken because of you.” “After everything they’ve done for you.” These phrases weaponize your own empathy against you. Guilt-tripping through flying monkeys is one of the nastiest tools in narcissistic abuse because it turns your love for your family into a cage.
Gaslighting: “That never happened.” “You’re too sensitive.” “They would never do that, I’ve known them for years.” Your reality gets overwritten by theirs. Self-doubt becomes constant.
Hoovering delivery: “They’ve really changed this time.” “They just want to talk.” “Give them one more chance.” “They said they’re sorry, why can’t you let it go?” The narcissist’s false promises to change, sent through trusted messengers.
Surveillance: “I’m not supposed to be telling you this, but…” This phrase is a red flag every single time. It sounds like an ally sharing a secret. It’s a flying monkey extracting information for the narcissist while pretending to be on your side. Data mining disguised as friendship.
If you’ve heard these exact phrases, you weren’t imagining it. They weren’t random. They came from a script the narcissist wrote.
When Family Becomes the Narcissist’s Flying Monkeys
This is the one that breaks people. Not friends turning against you. Not coworkers going silent. Family. The people who were supposed to protect you becoming active participants in the narcissistic abuse.
Parents and Siblings as Enablers
In a narcissistic family system, the narcissist’s explosive rage sets the rules for the entire household. Everyone learns what triggers the explosion, and everyone adjusts their behavior to prevent it.
When you name the abuse, you become the threat, not the narcissist. You’re the one disrupting the system that everyone else has learned to survive in.
Parents become flying monkeys when their priority is keeping the peace over protecting their child. Research on enabler fathers in narcissistic mother households shows how the non-narcissistic parent often becomes the most effective flying monkey precisely because children trust them.
“Just apologize and let it go.” “You know how they get, why do you keep pushing?”
These phrases aren’t ignorance. They’re fear disguised as advice. The parent has lived with the narcissist’s rage long enough to know the cost of confrontation.
I’ve seen this dozens of times. The narcissistic father whose explosive temper controlled every holiday dinner. The mother who told her daughter, “That’s just how your father is.” The siblings who sided with the raging parent because the golden child role came with protection and the scapegoat role came with pain.
That’s the narcissistic family system at work. Everyone has a role, and the flying monkeys are the ones who enforce the narcissist’s version of reality within the family.
I’ve watched adult siblings still stuck in these same roles decades after leaving home. The golden child still defends the narcissistic parent. The scapegoat still gets blamed when family gatherings go wrong. The flying monkey sibling reports back to the narcissist about your life, your decisions, your relationships. Every phone call becomes a data-gathering mission.
The narcissist doesn’t need to surveil you when they have family members doing it for free.
Children Weaponized as Flying Monkeys
The most devastating version of this is parental alienation, where a narcissistic parent turns their own children into flying monkeys against the other parent through narcissistic mother triangulation or similar tactics used by narcissistic fathers.
The narcissist tells the child lies: “Your mother is dangerous.” “Your father doesn’t love you.” Guilt, emotional blackmail, and intimidation force the child into loyalty. The child becomes a spy, a messenger, and a weapon, all at once. Reporting back on the other parent’s activities. Delivering the narcissist’s messages. Rejecting the targeted parent out of fear, not choice.
Dr. Ramani Durvasula, clinical psychologist and professor at California State University Los Angeles, has written extensively about how narcissists build systems of enablers around them. In families, those systems start young.
A child raised in the blast radius of narcissistic rage learns one lesson above all others: side with the loud one or become the next target.
Conclusion
Flying monkeys are not random. They are recruited, programmed, and deployed. Every phrase they said had a source. Every alliance they chose had a reason behind it.
You were never paranoid. You were surrounded.
The benevolent ones were manipulated by the narcissist’s charm and false narrative. The malevolent ones signed up on their own. Both types served the same purpose: to isolate you, destroy your credibility, and keep the narcissist’s control intact.
What you experienced, the gaslighting by proxy, the smear campaigns, the people you loved carrying the narcissist’s lies, has a name. It was abuse by proxy.
And now you have the language to call it what it was. You weren’t too sensitive. You were outnumbered.
You don’t have to figure this out alone.
Work with Mr. Som Dutt — a coach who understands narcissistic dynamics inside out.
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What Are Flying Monkeys In Narcissistic Abuse And Where Does The Term Come From?
Flying monkeys in narcissistic abuse are individuals recruited by a narcissist to spread false narratives, isolate victims, and carry out manipulation on their behalf. The term comes from The Wizard of Oz, where the Wicked Witch’s flying monkeys executed her orders without question.
How Do Narcissists Recruit Flying Monkeys To Target Their Victims?
Narcissists recruit flying monkeys by positioning themselves as victims, using DARVO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender) tactics, and leveraging charm or intimidation to make siding with them feel like the safest choice. They exploit empathy, codependency, and fear of their own rage to build a loyal network of enablers.
What Are The Two Main Types Of Narcissist Flying Monkeys?
Benevolent flying monkeys are unwitting enablers deceived by the narcissist’s false victim narrative. Malevolent flying monkeys are often narcissistic themselves and knowingly participate in the abuse for social capital or the satisfaction of targeting someone.
Why Do People Willingly Become Flying Monkeys For A Narcissist?
Motivations include self-preservation through fear of the narcissist’s explosive rage, codependency, betrayal blindness, and a desire to earn the narcissist’s approval. Some are drawn by the drama itself or the perceived power of aligning with the dominant personality.
What Are The Common Signs That Someone Is Acting As A Flying Monkey?
A sudden shift in attitude toward you, becoming dismissive or critical without any direct conflict, is the clearest early sign. They begin repeating the narcissist’s version of events almost word for word, even when they previously had no issue with you.
What Phrases Do Narcissist Flying Monkeys Commonly Use Against Victims?
Phrases like “That’s just how they are,” “You’re too sensitive,” “What did you do to provoke them?” and “They’re really trying to change, give them another chance” are the most common. These statements gaslight the victim and reinforce the narcissist’s manufactured narrative.
How Do Flying Monkeys Contribute To A Narcissist’s Smear Campaign?
Flying monkeys spread the narcissist’s reversed story to mutual contacts, provide false witness testimony, and actively damage the victim’s reputation and credibility. They become the delivery system for DARVO, making the actual victim appear to be the aggressor.
Can Flying Monkeys In Narcissistic Abuse Be Narcissists Themselves?
Yes. Malevolent flying monkeys frequently carry narcissistic traits and align with the dominant narcissist for shared power and the gratification of participating in someone’s destruction. They are not passive enablers but active collaborators.
How Do Narcissist Flying Monkeys Perpetuate The Abuse Cycle?
Flying monkeys reinforce idealization by vouching for the narcissist, deepen devaluation by echoing criticism of the victim, support the discard by validating the scapegoat narrative, and facilitate hoovering by delivering “they’ve changed” messages to pull the victim back in.
How Does Flying Monkey Behavior Impact Victims Of Narcissistic Abuse?
Victims experience accelerated isolation as flying monkeys erode their support network, which compounds anxiety, depression, and deep self-doubt. Having your reality constantly challenged by multiple people — not just the narcissist — is one of the most psychologically destabilizing aspects of this narcissistic abuse pattern.
Why Do Family Members Become Flying Monkeys For A Narcissist?
Golden child conditioning, fear of family conflict, codependency, and genuine belief in the narcissist’s convincing public image all drive family members to take the narcissist’s side. When a parent or sibling is the narcissist, survival instincts and loyalty override critical thinking.
What Is The Connection Between Flying Monkeys And DARVO In Narcissistic Abuse?
DARVO is the false narrative the narcissist constructs before deploying flying monkeys. Flying monkeys receive that reversed story and distribute it, ensuring the actual victim is seen as the aggressor while the narcissist maintains their innocent, wounded image.
Last Updated on 6 March 2026 by Som Dutt