Gollum physically destroyed the One Ring in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. At the Cracks of Doom, Frodo claims the Ring, but Gollum attacks him, bites off his finger, and falls into the fire while holding the Ring.
Frodo is essential to the Ring’s destruction because he carries it across Middle-earth and reaches Mount Doom. However, he does not willingly cast it into the fire. Gollum’s long obsession with the Ring ultimately brings it into the lava, where it is destroyed.
This conclusion reflects Tolkien’s treatment of pity and mercy. Earlier, Bilbo spared Gollum in The Hobbit, and Frodo later argues that Gollum deserves pity. Those acts of mercy help make Gollum’s final, unexpected role possible.
The event is sometimes simplified as Frodo destroying the Ring, because Frodo is its bearer and the story’s central quester. The book’s exact outcome is more complicated: Frodo’s endurance and Gollum’s intervention together lead to the Ring’s destruction.