Say it in the room where they aren’t: “That’s not how they are.” Loyalty is loudest when nobody’s checking.

Defending someone to their face costs almost nothing, because they can hear you doing it. The real version happens in a car or a group chat where they will never find out it happened. That is the only version that is purely about them. Everything else has a little performance mixed in.

The line does not need to be brave. One flat sentence, said without heat, is usually enough to change the temperature of a conversation. Try it once this week and notice how quickly the subject moves on to something else.