History Main / TheBeard

* In one episode of ''LiloAndStitchTheSeries'', Pleakley tries to get out of an arranged marrage by pretending he's engaged to Nani ([[{{Squick}} ew]]). Made all the more difficult by the episode featuring a LivingLieDetector experiment.

* FranDrescher lived this trope for 18 years before her husband found out he was gay. It became the basis for her show ''HappilyDivorced'', and she and her ex-husband are now very much AmicableExes after a period of not speaking to each other.

The term originated as someone taking on a partner in order to conceal the fact they are having an affair with a married individual. It spread wildly when adopted by the gay community where it is a woman who pretends to be a gay man's lover to make him appear heterosexual to others. The woman, like a beard, makes the gay man look more masculine. Men can be beards for lesbians as well, and these are sometimes called Merkins, after the pubic wigs (have fun looking that one up on Google image search - {{NSFW}}). Either use of the term (but particularly with regards to gay men) is how you're most likely to hear it used in RealLife. Extremely popular in mainland-China at the moment as parents who don't know what homosexuality is/pretend it doesn't exist exert considerable pressure on their kids to get married (to people of the opposite sex) and have kids of their own, regardless of any 'phases' they might (claim to) be going through.

* [[http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Mara_and_Luke/files/Fanfiction%20Archive%20/JT%20%28JadesHand%29%27s%20Fiction/ The Tangled Web]] starts with Mara pretending to be Luke's girlfriend to keep away a FanGirl with a highly influential father. Luke lasts about a day before it becomes real.

* Leslie Rudd has Kittie in ''FriendlyHostility'' might have started out this way, but it is a valid ship in its own right per WordOfGod, and Leslie/Kittie/Deringer can be read as a canon ship by the end of the series if the reader wants it to be.
* [[ScandinaviaAndTheWorld Denmark]] uses this trope [[http://satwcomic.com/denmark-s-gaydar here]].

* English actor Charles Laughton married Elsa Lanchester (of ''The Bride of Frankenstein'' fame) yet continued to see men. One day, Lanchester came home to find Laughton on the sofa ''in flagrante delicto'' with a rent boy. She told him that she didn't mind, but went completely mute for three months in shock. She later told a friend that she'd had no idea Laughton was gay, but added, "Remember, he was a ''great'' actor!" They never divorced.

* In one episode of ''WesternAnimation/KimPossible'', Doctor Vivian Porter boyfriend Oliver was actually an android she created to accept credit for her ideas because people had trouble accepting that [[HotScientist someone with supermodel looks]] could also be a genius.

The term originated as someone taking on a partner in order to conceal the fact they are having an affair with a married individual. It spread wildly when adopted by the gay community where it is a woman who pretends to be a gay man's lover to make him appear heterosexual to others. The woman, like a beard, makes the gay man look more masculine. Men can be beards for lesbians as well, and these are sometimes called Merkins, after the pubic wigs (have fun looking that one up on Google image search - {{NSFW}}). Either use of the term (but particularly with regards to gay men) is how you're most likely to hear it used in RealLife.

* Shows up in GameOfThrones, much more blatantly than the vague scattered implications in the book version: Margaery Tyrell is this for King Renly Baratheon, who needed a Queen and also an excuse to ally with the Tyrell family, since they had a large army and in an slight twist [[spoiler:he is actually sleeping with Margaery's brother Loras]]. Reportedly there were some who thought the show writers had invented this plot, but WordOfGod is that it was supposed to be obvious.

* ''MawaruPenguindrum'' eventually reveals that the relationship between [[spoiler:Tabuki and Yuri]] is this, and is a mutual setup in order to [[spoiler:get Tabuki's first love Momoka back -- and it turns out Yuri ''also'' loved her]]. Also is this trope in the more traditional sense in that [[spoiler:Yuri]] is apparently gay or bisexual.

* In one episode of ''FatherOfThePride'' Sarmoti tells his girlfriend that he was raising Hunter himself so that she thinks Sarmoti cares about someone other than just himself.

'''Maggie''': Well he couldn’t have been gay.

* In {{Batman}}, Bruce Wayne's girlfriends are little more than an endless string of beards -- not because he is gay, mind you (JoelSchumacher's films notwithstanding), but because he must deliberately stay emotionally distant and unavailable to avoid the risk of giving away his SecretIdentity.

* There was a second-season episode of ''BoyMeetsWorld'' called "The Beard." Shawn can't choose between two girls, so while he goes out with one of them, he recruits Cory to "sit on" the other, lest he should change his mind. Needless to say, the girls are none too happy about this [[BatmanGambit stunt]], and their schoolmates loudly proclaim them to be "[[JerkAss scum]]."

->'''Andy''': Hold on, his daughter? But he’s definitely gay.
->'''Maggie''': He can’t be gay if he’s got a daughter.
->'''Andy''': Creator/OscarWilde was married with two kids.
->'''Maggie''': Well he couldn’t have been gay.

** In the anime version of ''Marmalade Boy'', Ryouko Momoi agreed to temporarily be Namura-sensei's beard in regards to Meiko Akizuki; he thought he wasn't worth all the trouble Meiko had already gone through, and wanted her to be free. [[spoiler: Eventually, when this messed up Meiko ''even more'', Ryouko grew tired and told her the truth. Namura recognized it wasn't working and broke the charade off, dating and eventually marrying Meiko]].

Not to be confused with GrowingTheBeard, where a show significantly improves at some point, with the PlayfulHacker of a technology startup, which consists (so they say) of The Beard and The Suit - the Beard handling the technology, the Suit handling both the business side, and ensuring that the Beard does not walk into traffic or excitedly explain his proprietary secrets to the first person who expresses an interest, or with Brian Wilson of the San Francisco Giants, whose nickname is The Beard.

* While we're on the subject of romantic comedies, in ''TheProposal'' Sandra Bullock forces her put upon assistant to pretend they are engaged so that she won't be deported to Canada and lose her job at the American company she worked for. Bullock's {{workaholic}} character only considered her deportation a minor inconvenience until her job was threatened, at which point she drags her assistant into it.

* This trope forms the basic premise of ''VisualNovel/MyForgedWedding'', a RomanceGame in which the protagonist must, for various reasons, pretend to be the fiancee or wife of one of six attractive men.

* This trope forms the basic premise of ''VisualNovel/MyForgedWedding'', a RomanceGame in which the protagonist must, for various reasons, pretend to be the fiancee or wife of one of five attractive men.

* In Jasmine Cresswell's ''Love for Hire'' the main character made up an imaginary boyfriend in order to stave off her mother's concern. Faced with being forced to produce said boyfriend as an escort to her unrequited love's wedding to another woman, she told a regular customer at the bakery she owned that she'd pay him for agreeing to play the role.

* The "Fake-out Make-out" from ''WesternAnimation/DannyPhantom''.

* Junichi in DaCapo acts as Mako's beard to help her get rid of an unwanted female admirer. While the motive is genuine, the very first day of acting she's already feeling awkward and begins to treat it more and more as though they were really going out.
* In VisualNovel/UminekoNoNakuKoroNi, Kanon is this to Jessica during the school festival in [=EP2=], since her friends have been teasing her about not having a boyfriend (though Jessica does in fact have a crush on Kanon). However [[spoiler:the series heavily implies that Kanon and his "sister" Shannon (who's also Jessica's oldest friend) are actually the same person.]]