History Main / SecretlyWealthy

* ''Film/{{Flodder}}'': In the third movie, Ma Flodder almost marries a hobo that she fell in love with. It turns out that he's actually the head of an incredibly wealthy family and he wanted to get away from his demanding heirs for once.

* During UsefulNotes/{{the Bronze Age|OfComicBooks}} of ''ComicBook/TeenTitans'', one would never guess that Changeling (Beast Boy) was heir to his adoptive father's estate - and Steve Dayton made Bruce Wayne look middle-class by comparison!

* ''WesternAnimation/TopCat'': In ''Top Cat and the Beverly Hills Cats'', Benny meets an old bag lady and shoves her out of the way of some falling junk, saving her life. Soon after he leaves the scene, a limousine drives up, revealing the "bag lady" to be a disguised Gertrude Vandergelt, wealthy heir to the Vandergelt diamond mines.

* In one episode of ''Series/HogansHeroes'', Schultz revealed that he was the owner of the Schotze company, one of the oldest and most successful toy companies in Germany.

* ''Literature/TheBelgariad'': Belgarath the Sorcerer offhandedly mentions that he has a small fortune in gold ingots from having gone undercover as a prospector once, several centuries before the time of the books. It's purely sentimental to him since his magic and his status as a LivingLegend see to all his needs, but [[LovableRogue Silk]] is scandalized by the thought of all that gold sitting there unused.

* ''Series/{{Forever|2014}}'': Jo believes Henry is doing the academic version of this after "Social Engineering." When a hacker nearly exposes Henry's faked credentials, another member of the group whose life Henry has saved creates a new, more detailed background for him as thanks, with the result that Jo believes that Henry, far from studying at a medical school in Guam, was actually first in his class at Oxford. Henry! who hadn't known about the new records, improvises that Guam was a refresher course and he uses that degree on his paperwork to avoid appearing pretentious.

* ''Manga/OnePiece'': When first introduced, Miss Wednesday of Baroque Works appears to be a simple bounty hunter, out to kill Laboon for his meet. During the events at Whisky Peak though, it's revealed she's actually Princess Nefertari Vivi, the wealthy heir to the throne of Alabasta.

%%* In ''Manga/OnePiece'', Vivi fell under this trope before her HeelFaceTurn.

* Following [[spoiler:Dinky being DrivenToSuicide by]] Diamond Tiara's constant bullying in ''[[https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8W3I9uWiynnNVBNSU1BeGZOQk0/edit?pli=1&resourcekey=0-ugsmSSPR7SMENQ0VmJzmvQ Too Far]]'', The Apple Family decides to cut all ties with the Barnyard Bargains in order to preserve their own reputation as Diamond notices that her father was now reeling from everything that was happening to him because of his daughters' actions. Among the issues caused is that Diamond finds out that the "Rube family" she had constantly ragged against were responsible for at least seven percent of all profits the Rich Family makes and that the Apples actually owns large swathes of land and have connections with other Earth Pony farmers throughout Equestria [[MagneticHero that were formed through genuine companionship]] instead of just driving them out of business.

Compare KingIncognito, where the secret might be some other type of power besides wealth, SlummingIt, where this is done [[JustForFun for fun]], and AffluentAscetic where a person who's known to be rich chooses to live modestly or even spartanly. See also NonIdleRich, for when the wealthy person works a "regular" job for fulfillment [=and/or=] helping others. Contrast MockMillionaire.

* For the first four episodes of ''Harlen Corben's Shelter'', Ema comes off as a tough gal with black hair, biker clothing, tattoos and rumors she lives in a trailer park with a drug-dealing family. Myron and Spoon follow Ema...to a massive mansion owned by movie star Angelica Wyatt, who's Ema's mom. Ema reveals she was the one who started the rumor on her "rough" home life because she was afraid people would only want to be friends with her because of her wealth. The fact long-time friend Spoon instantly starts treating her differently only backs her up.

-->'''Ema'': No, you saw ''that'' one on loan.

* In ''Literature/TheTruth'' by Creator/TerryPratchett, William [=DeWorde=] has had a falling out with his family and lives on around $50 a month, although since ''Literature/{{Discworld}}'' is a pastiche of Middle Ages/Renaissance fantasy, 50 Ankh-Morpork dollars ($AM) a month is a fair amount of money.
** For comparison's sake, members of the Watch, the police force, make 30 dollars a month and are considered reasonably well paid.
** William gets his income from various rich and powerful individuals outside Ankh-Morpork who pay him for writing to them about the general goings-on of the city. He figures out that the rich do not really want to see a member of their class live in poverty so they support him under this pretense. Only later does he realize how powerful what he does can be.

** A minor RunningGag in Discworld is that the ''really'' rich can afford to act poor. Those who are only pretty rich will buy fancy clothes and jewelry and homes to try to make themselves seem much richer, but those who are supremely wealthy don't need to. Why buy new furniture when the stuff your grandparents bought was so good that it has lasted all these years? Why dress nicely when you don't need to work so you can devote all your time to messy hobbies like raising swamp dragons? And ironically, this allows them to ''stay'' rich. Sybil Ramkin is the best example, but Lady Margolotta and the Dowager Duchess of Quirm also qualify. And Sybil's husband Sam Vimes was born poor but is now the richest man in the city. So naturally, he prefers dented armor (shows he's doing his job as a cop; obviously, ''someone'' had to have dented it while 'objecting' to their arrest) and cheap boots (he can feel the cobblestones under his feet as he walks 'the beat') to the finery his station allows.
*** Except cigars. He likes the good cigars he can afford now that he's loaded.

* ''Literature/NightWatch'': The titular organization turns out to be this trope in a later book. In fact, in book 2 the protagonist laments not being able to afford to fly business class, while the Dark Ones are permitted to use magic for personal enrichment. The Light Ones are far too moral for that. But later on, he learns that his company ATM card doesn't appear to have a limit. When he asks his boss about it, the guy looks at him and says that they can predict the future pretty accurately. How hard would it be for them to play the stock market or currency exchange rates? It's just not in their nature to be greedy, but yes, the organization has a fairly large budget. The boss is even considering buying a company jet and offers the protagonist to buy a Bentley. The protagonist instead decides to buy an SUV for family trips. His boss just shrugs.