Destination management organizations (DMOs) increasingly focus on enhancing residents’ quality of life. A key driver of this trend is that the quality of life of a destination’s residents is closely linked to sustainable development in it. While DMOs recognized that negative destination publicity seriously undermines the sustainable development of tourist destinations, the negative impact on local residents and how to mitigate the negative impact have not been paid little attention. In light of this, the present paper contributes to knowledge by analyzing the effect of negative destination publicity on local residents’ emotions and quality of life. Four scenario-based experiments were performed to test hypothesized relationships. Findings revealed that value-related negative destination publicity leads to a higher level of shame and lower level of quality of life for residents than performance-related negative destination publicity. They also revealed that high perceived destination resilience can attenuate the effects and low perceived destination resilience strengthens them. The findings, as well as enriching the literature on negative destination publicity, can guide practitioners to improve perceived destination resilience to attenuate negative impacts on residents.