He has always been terrible in my view. I don't think there are worse personalities than the narcisist who is successful. It's just never their fault.
In his early days before the PR machine he could be extremely silly. As an example, he purposely antagonized all Porto and Benfica fans in his Manchester United first tenure. Once, he gave the finger to Benfica fans at their stadium (because they whistled at him during the game). And when he scored the Puskas goal, at the flash interview, he refused to answer any question and just repeated two or three times with his most punchable face "I am very happy to have scored against Porto."
Now I see nothing particularly bad about those attitudes in particular, some players chose to act as fans against rivals. Quaresma for example probably looks like a massive idiot to Sporting fans but he couldn't care less. Guys like Figo or Moutinho were eternally booed in some stadiums for some actions in their careers and they just took it normally, they knew that was the normal consequence of what they had chosen to do. It's the innability to own up to the actions that makes narcisists unbearable. It was famous at the time a prime time TV interview with Ronaldo, when asked why so many people (non sporting fans, basically) disliked him and he answered "because I'm rich, good looking and score lots of goals".
Booing players is the most normal thing in Portugal, if you left a rival club not too long ago. I know a few in here took exception to that, and I fogured it's not as normal in England, but it's a run-of-the-mill thing here, it would take someone very precious to care about that. If you want to give the finger to 75% of football fans in your country just own up to it, don't go crying and saying it's because they envy you. I envy any profession footballer.
As he entered the debate about being the best in the world, and with a bit of enterprise level PR care, throughout the years that image changed a lot, and most Portuguese fans, unlike me, started to like him, and always catered to him after he became successful. There's no serious criticisim for his attitude as a person. Now that he wanes, it starts appearing here too as well. That's the sort of fans these guys get.
I think he's fake as shit, I was always impressed that so many just fall for his obviously hipocriticial attitudes. I'm particularly impressed that so many people in here thought he had special feelings for United, or that people here compliment him as "a great captain" - when I started watching football, there's no way a guy like Ronaldo would ever get near a captain armband, at any club. And people believe the crap other less successful players have to go on about how they all love working with him. Right.
He probably envies Bebe as ridiculous as that sounds. You just need to understand the type.
Disclaimer, I'm anti-patriotisms, so I tend to hate any collective obsessions of my countrymen. I certainly have a bias against Ronaldo. I disliked Figo too, for example, but just as an unlikeable typically arrogant rival, a lot easier to respect because he was a lot more natural.
The only thing separating this guy from the sorts of Trump or Musk is that his role in society makes him inconsequential compared to those psychos, but I see no differences in their poise, so he gets the same level of respect they get from me.
Mind, I'm talking about how he strikes me as a person. No football involved. By criticizing his "fans" I don't mean his football fans, I mean his personal fans.