If I Cant Have You / Live-Action TV

• A non-lethal version on All My Children when Noah dumped Taylor for Julia. Taylor promptly lied to the police that Noah had deliberately murdered Julia's rapist rather than having acted in self-defense in an attempt to have him sent to prison for the rest of his life.
• On the Angel episode "A Hole in the World", Gunn assumes (incorrectly) that this is the reason why Knox chose Fred to be the vessel for Illyria, after she turns him down for Wesley. In fact, it's because he thinks it's an honor only she was worthy of.
• A non-romantic example in Babylon 5. Once it becomes clear that Sheridan and his forces are going to win and overthrow him, with the military and senators right outside his door to arrest him, Earth Alliance President Clark puts a gun to his own head, but not before programming Earth's defense satellites to fire on the planet itself in the hopes of taking everyone with him.
• In The Big Bang Theory, the guys are in line to watch a special edition of Raiders of the Lost Ark with 21 additional seconds of footage. They just miss out on getting in. So Sheldon sneaks into the movie theatre and steals the movie reels.
• Ashley Iocco in Big Brother 14 US had went on a mock date with Ian. However, she grew closer to fellow houseguest (And Public Target number one) Frank - and when Frank was targeted for eviction, and once again managed to get off the block, Ashley was sent out.
• Platonic example in Breaking Bad where Walter let's Jessie's girlfriend die because he sees it as an opportunity to keep Jesse with him, similar events occur throughout the show all with the similar purpose of controlling Jesse.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • In "Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered", a creepy, creepy love spell causes every woman in town (except for Cordelia, who was unaffected) to try to do this to Xander.
  • In "I Only Have Eyes For You", it is revealed that a student killed his teacher he had a relationship with because she tried to end it. He then shot himself, and his ghost possesses people to reenact the scene with fatal consequences.
  • In "Crush", Spike chains up both Buffy and Drusilla, and declares he'll stake his his vampire ex-girlfriend as a sign of his love for Buffy. When Buffy is unimpressed, Spike says he'll release Drusilla to feed on her unless Buffy gives him the faintest crumb of hope that someday he might have a chance with her.
• At the end of the Cadfael episode "The Rose Rent", Miles screams and begs Judith to "Tell me you love me!" while threatening to throw her and himself into a blazing fire if she doesn't.
• Charmed: It seems this is the case with some evil characters who fall in love with mortals, like in the episodes "Love Hurts" and Magic Hour".
  • In "Love's a Witch", Olivia Callaway and Richard Montana fell in love despite their feuding families. Olivia was killed in the crossfire of the feud but her spirit couldn't rest without Richard. She eventually decides that if they can't be together in life, they can be together in death and teleports Richard to a crypt. Olivia was possessing Paige at the time, and her sisters are able to break into the crypt before Richard and Paige suffocate.
• Happens in the final arc of Choujin Sentai Jetman. Maria, after reverting back into Rie Aoi, stabs Radiguet from the back. Radiguet retaliated by killing her, but not because she's a traitor, but because "If I can't have you, then I won't let Red Hawk have you!". Just another Moral Event Horizon Radiguet crosses in daily basis.
• On Chuck Volkhov threatens to do this to Frost. Particularly twisted in this case because he's not losing her to anyone else, he's in danger of being captured and would simply rather she die than live without him.
• Cold Case "A Perfect Day": A little girl's body is found in a river, and it's revealed that her abusive father found out that his wife, the victim's mother, was planning to marry another man. Realizing he'd lost her, he killed their child in front of her so that she couldn't have a "happy ending" either.
• In Criminologist Himura and Mystery Writer Arisugawa, one of the cases involves an idol singer being found dead in the middle of the group's performance. The suspect is revealed to be her producer, who had come to obsess over the idol and would rather have her dead than see her quit the group and go mainstream.
• Dallas: The season 7 cliffhanger featured Bobby Ewing getting shot while sitting late at night in J.R.’s office. It was first assumed that J.R. was the target, but it was later discovered that the shooter was Katherine Wentworth, due to Bobby’s pending marriage to another woman. She claimed, “If I can't have him no one can I'll see to it!”
• Dexter: In the season 2 finale, Lila attempts to kill Dexter—alongside Rita's children—by burning down her apartment and locking the doors before she flees to Paris. All because Dexter recognized that she was a bad influence upon him.
• Frasier: Maris gets insanely jealous of women Niles dates - especially Mel. Late in the series, Maris is not opposed to Niles's relationship with Daphne, but still clings to Niles for support.
• When Blair dumps Chuck on Gossip Girl he puts a dating fatwa on her. It works.
• Gotham: Crazy Barbara Kean kidnapped her ex-fiancé Jim Gordon and his new fiancée Leslie Thompkins and tried to murder them both, even staging it as the wedding they never got to have, all the while still claiming she "loved" him.
  • Later in the series the Riddler tries to do that to Leslie Thompkins when he thinks she still has feelings for Jim Gordon, but she turns the tables on him and stabs him first resulting in Mutual Kill. After they are revived by Hugo Strange they both seem to be over it and just leave each other alone.
• A non-human variant is seen in the Haven episode "Love Machine." The local Mr. Fixit has been considering moving out Haven with his girlfriend to get away from the supernatural weirdness that's been going on. The machines he's repaired, however, don't like that idea and try to murder anyone who would take him away.
• In C-drama Holy Pearl, a loose adaptation of Inuyasha, Naraku-expy Shi You Ming was turned down by Kikyo/ Xian Yue in the backstory. He explains he is willing to accept that, as long as she doesn't fall in love with anyone else. You can guess what happens next.
• Despite an amicable breakup, Barney Stinson of How I Met Your Mother thinks this is happening with Wendy the Waitress.
• Nevel from iCarly is a non-murderous example towards Carly. After she refused to kiss him, he decided that if she wouldn't be his, then he would ruin her webshow.
• Implied in Jessie. Creepy Connie chases Luke across the stage trying to kiss him during the school play. When Luke keeps rejecting her advances, she finally resorts to trying to kill him with a flamethrower that Jessie borrowed from her dad to use a more realistic prop.
• Implied with Dr Maki in Kamen Rider OOO, who killed his sister because she was about to get married and leave home; although he wouldn't admit it, she was glad to leave her family and planned to have no contact with him after the wedding.
  • Jiro in Kamen Rider Kiva, who uses this exact line and tries to kill Yuri after she leaves him for Otoya.
  • Jun Kazu in Kamen Rider Double kills Saeko because she doesn't return his feelings.
  • Kamen Rider Fourze has Makise, the Pyxis Dopant, who tries to send an entire school bus full of girls plummeting to their deaths because all had refused to go out with him.
• On Lost this refers to the relationship of Ben/Juliet in which Ben sends Goodwin on a death mission so he can have Juliet. Also Juliet tells Jack in "The Other Woman" "He think that I am his."
• Malcolm in the Middle: In one episode of the time Francis lived in Alaska, he and some co-workers were stranded in a cabin while their boss went for supplies. They had nothing but a piece of string to entertain themselves with until even it vanished. They were so obsessed they even put the main suspect in a "trial" for it and invoked the trope.
• Midsomer Murders: In "The Ballad of Midsomer County",when his wife Claire reveals that she was planning on leaving him of her own free will, Tom Asher points his gun at her with intent to kill her.
• Simon. Poor, poor Simon on Misfits seems to bring this out in people: fellow patients from his hospital stay, people he saves, counselors. The boy cannot catch a break.
• Mr. Robot: When Elliot tries to shut down Stage 2 which will cost thousands of innocent lives, Tyrell ends up shooting him in the abdomen. He regrets it later and confesses his love for him.
• On The Musketeers, Rochefort is obsessed with Queen Anne, and is convinced that she returns his feelings, despite being married to King Louis. Rochefort figures out that she had an affair with Aramis (and that he is the father of her son). When Anne rejects Rochefort, he tells this information to the king, knowing that this will likely result in both Aramis' and Anne's deaths. He manages to convince the King to condemn her to death, and then decides to strangle her himself. Luckily, the Musketeers arrive just in time.
• Parodied on Mystery Science Theater 3000 when Joel and the Bots saw I Accuse My Parents: "No one's gonna take you away from me. Not even me, see! I'll kill me before that happens."
• Regina does this to poor Graham on Once Upon a Time after he finally wakes up from her 28 year long Mind Rape that starts with her actually forcing him into a relationship with her.
• Done hilariously in the season two finale of Person of Interest. A couple of newlyweds are confronted by the bride's armed and homicidal ex invoking this trope. Suddenly, a shot rings out, the attacker falls down, and the rescued couple sees The Man In The Suit, who congratulates them on their wedding and drives off.
• This happened to Pretty Little Liars's Emily by her ex girlfriend's killer who came to town to make her suffer for being picked over him by the dead girl, and who actually started falling for her but was rejected for Paige. He kidnapped Paige, lured Emily to a remote location, where she is Forced to Watch him attempt to Murder the Hypotenuse.
• In Robin Hood, this was Guy of Gisborne's reaction to Marian making it very, very clear she's not interested. Fans actually got more annoyed at her insensitivity than at his murderous response, despite the fact that by this point Marian had given Guy dozens of chances to change his ways, and he squandered each and every one of them. Her outburst was simply the last straw.
• Moriarty for Sherlock which leads to an awesome Thanatos Gambit that is truly epic.
• An astounding number of meteor freaks who pursued Lana Lang on Smallville had this as a modus operandi.
  • And then there's Davis, who was apparently A-OK with burying himself alive to stop his Superpowered Evil Side from rampaging around the world, but only if Chloe loved him. If not...
  • Spoken word-for-word by Conner on red kryptonite towards Lois Lane in "Scion".
• Penelope says this to Chad in the Sonny with a Chance episode "Sonny With A Secret". She tries to kill Sonny with a bomb, and then, when Chad and the So Random cast tries to fly to Wisconsin to save her, she takes the position of the pilot, hands Chad one of the only two parachutes on the plane, and tells him to jump from the plane with her and date her since his girlfriend will be gone. When Chad chooses Sonny over Penelope, she says this trope, takes both parachutes, and jumps out of the plane, leaving Chad and the others to a plane crash. (They escape, partially because this is Disney.)
  • So Random! had Audrey Vale's character, Julia Peters (aka the "I'm going to marry Zac Feldman!" girl) shows this in one of her Zac Feldman cheers.
  Julia: Zac, Zac, he's my man! If I can't marry him NO ONE CAN.
• Strong Medicine. Lu and the father of her son's girlfriend hit it off and begin dating, only for his Rich Bitch ex-wife file for custody of their daughter, trying to spin their relationship as something tawdry and inappropriate. Despite knowing full well that she's only doing this out of jealousy and doesn't even want him back, nor even really want custody of their daughter, the man caves in and breaks up with Lu, knowing that she has the money and power to win the case and not being willing to lose his daughter.
• Supernatural:
  • Zombie Angela in "Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things" kills Neil via snapping his neck when he tries to leave her.
  • Season 9's "First Born" reveals that Abaddon had this reaction to Cain falling in love with a woman named Colette and trying to leave his old life behind. It's never stated whether Abaddon had unrequited feelings for her maker and former leader or if they had actually been in a relationship before he met Colette, but it's clear that she at least wanted him and he wanted nothing more to do with her. She possessed Colette to try to seduce him back to being evil and when that failed, spitefully tore the couple apart forever by tricking Cain into murdering the hypotenuse for her. He lived in isolation the rest of his days, since while she doesn't have the power to kill him, she absolutely can and would kill anyone else close to him. As Colette was a human, her soul went on to an ordinary afterlife, and since Cain was a demon, he went into the Empty, making them eternal Star-Crossed Lovers unable to even be Together in Death.
• Factors importantly into a twist ending from Tales from the Crypt, in which it is shouted repeatedly by the murderer. Believe it or not, the murderer is actually the more sympathetic one in the equation.
• Lampshaded in Teen Wolf where Matt claims he's not the type to say "If I can't have you, no one can" to the girl he's been secretly photographing. He later concedes this is not quite true before shouting exactly that.
• Rose from Two and a Half Men implied that she purposely shoved Charlie in front of an oncoming train not long after she caught him cheating on her with another woman.
• In The Wiz Live!, the Tin Man Was Once a Man, on whom Evamean, the Wicked Witch of the East, developed an unrequited crush. When Evamean discovered that he already had a girlfriend, she struck him with lightning. After he found himself transformed into a heartless tin man, she boasted that if she couldn't have his heart, then no one could.
• In You, Joe attempts to murder Candace when she breaks up with him. He succeeds in murdering Beck when he realizes she will never be able to accept his killer, stalker side. Later on, he stalks Marienne all the way to Europe and kidnaps her when she makes it clear any hope of rekindling their previous romance was over.
  • Love attempts to murder Joe after she learns he plans to leave her and take their baby to start a new life with another woman.

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