History Main / SpitefulWill

* Implied in "Anti-Hero" by Music/TaylorSwift. The narrator mentions a hypothetical scenario in which her daughter-in-law murders her for [[InheritanceMurder her fortune]], presuming that she and the rest of the family were in the will. However, during the will reading things don't go to plan, with one person screaming that the narrator is "laughing up at us from hell!"; we don't know the details of the will but it's strongly implied none of the family are getting what they expected and that the narrator intentionally set it up this way. The music video goes into more depth, revealing the children only receive 13 cents and the narrator's cats get her beach house.

* On year into his marriage [[UsefulNotes/TheHouseOfHanover King George IV]], made a will leaving his estate to his former [[CommonLawMarriage common-law wife]] Maria Fitzherbert, while setting aside a single shilling for his hated legal wife Princess Caroline. The will never came into effect; the King eventually denounced Maria while Caroline predeceased him.

* On year into his marriage [[UsefulNotes/HouseOfHanover King George IV]], made a will leaving his estate to his former [[CommonLawMarriage common-law wife]] Maria Fitzherbert, while setting aside a single shilling for his hated legal wife Princess Caroline. The will never came into effect; the King eventually denounced Maria while Caroline predeceased him.

* One episode of ''Series/WKRPInCincinnati'' opens with Jennifer dating an older man who suddenly dies in the middle of dinner. She attends his will reading which is done via videotape and he gratuitously insults his relatives. The relatives expect him to leave everything to Jennifer, but in fact he only leaves her one dollar (the first he made). The rest he instructs Jennifer to spend on a parade to honor veterans of his old Army regiment.

* ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2'' exists because of this trope. Zepheniah Mann was convinced by his two sons to purchase large areas of land in frontier America. On his journey over to see his newly purchased land he was struck with almost every illness known to man and was shocked to find it an empty and useless desert. Needless to say: he wasn't happy with his sons and in his will, he never refers to them without some derogatory prefix: "dunderheaded", "addle-pated", "layabout", and "brain-defective" are all used. As the final spiteful spit he wills his corporate empire to his servants, and leaves each brother [[ThisIsMySide half]] of his American estate so they have to work together to get anything done, knowing they would never stop bickering -- indeed, it's not long before both resort to hiring mercenaries to take the other half by force, starting their ForeverWar which is the game's setting.

* ''Series/JessicaJones'': When [[spoiler: Dorothy Walker]] is killed by Sallinger, she leaves Jessica the contents of her liquor cabinet as a pointed reference to Jessica's drinking habit.

Following a person's death, their will must be read to their family an associates to determine who is legally entitled to any potential inheritance.

** In [[Recap/SouthParkS5E6Cartmanland Cartmanland]], Cartman inherits one million dollars from a relative who chose him as her beneficiary because she believed her other relatives would spend her money on crack.

** In another episode, Cartman inherits one million dollars from a relative who chose him as her beneficiary because she believed her other relatives would spend her money on crack.

[[folder:Films]]

* In the Creator/JohnGrisham novel ''The Testament'', billionaire Troy Phelan presents the lawyers representing his ex-wives and multiple heirs with a will guaranteeing them each of them a sizeable portion of his estate. As soon as they have left the room, he presents his own lawyers with a new will which overrides the previous one -- and which will only give everyone just enough money to pay off their debts and leaves everything else to an illegitimate daughter -- then [[DrivenToSuicide throws himself out of a window]].
:: In a case of realism in media, this then provokes a challenge from the disenfranchised heirs about Troy Phelan's mental competency (even though they went to great pains to prove his competency prior to him signing the will they liked) and the court battle to put the estate into probate is contentious at best, and the heirs [[TheBadGuyWins end up getting quite a bit of money anyway]].

* The Claremont family of ''LightNovel/TheCaseFilesOfJewelerRichard'' has a will that states a 118 carat diamond will be inherited by a spouse of the family...only the spouse has to be married to the child whose mother was born closest to England, and the spouse almost exclusively has to be a traditional British housewife to inherit anything at all. [[spoiler:And then the diamond isn't even real and exists solely to punish the man's racist family.]]

* ''ComicBook/ThePunisherMAX'': During the "Kitchen Irish" arc, Old Man Nesbitt (the incredibly ancient head of TheIrishMob) was well-known for his hatred of everyone under his orders, repeating his catchphrase "Shower o' cunts" ad nauseum. In his will, he leaves his fortune to four of them in the form of partial codes, fully expecting them to murder one another to get it. In fact, the four survivors agree to share their codes to spite Nesbitt (who was greatly responsible for their evil lifestyle thanks to his constant insults, put-downs, and molesting)... only to see the inheritance consists of a block of C4 with a 5-second timer. With "cunts" written on it.
* In the 1952 ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' story "Joker's Millions", later [[TheFilmOfTheBook adapted]] as [[Recap/TheNewBatmanAdventuresE7JokersMillions an episode]] of ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'', ComicBook/TheJoker inherits millions of dollars from recently deceased mob boss King Barlowe. Joker frivolously spends the money on everything he can think of and ends up owing a ton of back taxes. The real kicker comes in when he learns that only the first $10 million he inherited was real money, while the rest is CounterfeitCash, since Barlowe's last will was merely a huge gag at Joker's expense. Being the SoreLoser that he is, Joker reacts negatively to it, knowing that he'd either get jailed for tax evasion or become the ButtMonkey of Gotham by admitting that a dead man conned him.

[[folder:Web Comics]]

* The Miser's Will in ''VideoGame/Diablo3'':

* One episode of ''Series/WKRPInCincinnati'' opens with Jennifer dating an older man who suddenly dies in the middle of dinner. She attends his will reading which is done via videotape and he gratuitously insults his relatives. She, however, is granted a large sum of money which she announces will be used for a parade to honor veterans.

* ''Series/AllMyChildren''. Wrongly believing that his wife Maria is cheating on him, Edmund Grey not only cuts her out of his will, he makes his ex-fiancée Brooke the executor, meaning that whenever Maria wants or needs something for their children, she'll have to go to the woman whose relationship with her husband she was always insecure about. [[note]] They had begun dating after Edmund and Brooke broke up, with Edmund pining away for Brooke the entire time, proposing to Maria only after Brooke rejected him once and for all, yet ''still'' trying to reunite with Brooke ''twice'' during their engagement before finally moving on with Maria. Edmund's actions come across as a final way of tauntingly confirming Maria's worst fears that he never really loved her and that she was always second best to Brooke, and worse yet, forcing her to deal with that fact on a regular basis [[/note]]

* In ''Literature/DaddysLittleGirl'', Dorothy Westerfield's last will provides a sympathetic example. She now has good reason to believe her grandson Rob [[spoiler:indeed killed his girlfriend Andrea and tried to have her killed as well]]; she'd apparently suspected it for years but was deep in denial. Faced with proof, she donates most of her vast fortune to charity and doesn't entirely cut Rob out. He gets ''a dollar'', which is honestly worse. [[note]]Writing Rob out of the will would still leave him the opportunity to contest it and win, possibly inheriting her estate. Deliberately leaving him a dollar makes it much more difficult (if not impossible) for Rob to file a motion that would gain any traction, making it much more effective than disinheriting Rob entirely.[[/note]]

* In ''Literature/DaddysLittleGirl'', Dorothy Westerfield's last will provides a sympathetic example. She now has good reason to believe her grandson Rob [[spoiler:indeed killed his girlfriend Andrea and tried to have her killed as well]]; she'd apparently suspected it for years but was deep in denial. Faced with proof, she donates most of her vast fortune to charity and doesn't entirely cut Rob out. He gets ''a dollar''.

::: In a case of realism in media, this then provokes a challenge from the disenfranchised heirs about Troy Phelan's mental competency (even though they went to great pains to prove his competency prior to him signing the will they liked) and the court battle to put the estate into probate is contentious at best, [[spoiler: and the heirs [[TheBadGuyWins end up getting quite a bit of money anyway]]]].

** In a case of realism in media, this then provokes a challenge from the disenfranchised heirs about Troy Phelan's mental competency (even though they went to great pains to prove his competency prior to him signing the will they liked) and the court battle to put the estate into probate is contentious at best, [[spoiler: and the heirs [[TheBadGuyWins end up getting quite a bit of money anyway]]]].

* In the 1952 ''Franchise/{{Batman}}'' story "Joker's Millions", later [[TheFilmOfTheBook adapted]] as [[Recap/TheNewBatmanAdventuresE7JokersMillions an episode]] of ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheAnimatedSeries'', ComicBook/TheJoker inherits millions of dollars from recently deceased mob boss King Barlowe. The Joker starts recklessly spending money on everything he can think of and ends up owing a ton of back taxes. The real kicker comes in when he learns that only the first $10 million he inherited was real money, while the rest is CounterfeitCash, since Barlowe's last will was merely a huge gag at the Joker's expense.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' episode "[[Recap/FamilyGuyS2E1PeterPeterCaviarEater Peter Peter Caviar Eater]]", Lois' late Aunt Margarite has a rather lavish ''Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous''- style video will, and, [[ObnoxiousInLaws like the rest of Lois' family]], doesn't turn down the chance to pick a bone with Peter:

* In the ''Series/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphia'' episode "[[Recap/ItsAlwaysSunnyInPhiladelphiaS03E03DennisAndDeesMomIsDead Dennis and Dee's Mom is Dead]]", Dennis and Dee’s mother and Frank’s ex-wife Barbra left her family a will in the event of her death (having [[KarmicDeath died during a botched neck-lift]]). She leaves [[ParentalFavoritism Dennis]] with the lavish family mansion as long as Frank is not allowed anywhere near it and her lover (and the actual father of Dennis and Dee) Bruce Mathis her half of the settlement, while leaving Frank (whose fortune she laundered, being the GoldDigger that she is) and Dee ([[AbusiveParent who she views as "a disappointment and a mistake", despite being twins with Dennis]]) absolutely nothing. She even asks to be buried with her jewelry, showing the kind of person she was.

* ''Series/TheGeorgeLopezShow'': After Claudia, the ex-wife of Angie's brother, dies, she announces in a video will that she'll be handing control of Veronica's inheritance over to a trustee who will determine when she is responsible enough to control it. She asks [[BaitAndSwitch Vic to step forward...and tells him to kiss George's ass, choose George as the trustee]].