This is a strange claim.

In my personal experience, the asshole kids overlapped greatly with the popular kids in a Venn diagram sense. People, in general, did want to be their friends.

I think that a lot of the assholes behaved that way because they were naturally charismatic and people wanted to be their friends despite their being assholes. They were never socially punished for their behavior because they could turn on the charm at will. In other words, they were assholes because they could afford to be.