To me it's entirely believable because I've been in a similar situation.
When hired it was my original manager to 2 employees; but it was obvious there would be some hiring. Which did happen.
Eventually it was 'too much' for said manager to be dealing with us on a daily. So he found a marketing person to be our new manager. He was lazy as well, so his contribution was more or less creating salesforce reports to track and grade each of us. I was constantly #1 so I didn't care but if someone went on vacation, they showed up in last place and would be chastised for poor numbers. Generally the team didn't like him.
Then comes the snitch sales person who becomes our manager, not above or below this other manager, but below the original. She tried to keep educated on the ongoing work, I dont blame her. Except about 1/3rd of the team refused to talk to her; they realized a pattern of her talking to them and them getting in shit an hour or 2 later. Personally I outright went to the original manager and asserted she's not managing me and if she is, please tell me right away. Because I was planning to instant quit. He of course said she's not and that I seem to manage myself fine enough, these other managers were to keep the team going.
So the team was getting a little angry with 3 layers of managers. What happens? A junior on the team proposes he becomes the manager and reports to the managers so they dont have to interact with the team. I had mostly excluded myself from this team by this point. It was a sinking ship and I wanted to be just far enough to watch what happened.
Now what happens? This junior basically was turned into the snitch on her behalf. He started getting hated by the team and decides he doesn't want the position anymore. So he orchestrates to be out of the office all day.
So then an outside management team was hired to figure out why this team was so dysfunctional. I was apparently uninvolved and never the subject of the meeting. But guess who is in the meetings? All the managers and none of the team. All of the problems of the team... obviously the team and not the managers.
I specifically again went to the original manager and asked about the meetings. He reassured me they weren't about me at all. That one of the primary discoveries is they need at least 1 more manager to manage the managers.