Crazy Jealous Guy

Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

"Well I'd rather see you dead, little girl
Than to be with another man"

— Arthur Gunter, "Baby Let's Play House"; later quoted in The Beatles' "Run For Your Life"

Meet the Spear Counterpart to the Clingy Jealous Girl. Combining the Deadly Sins of Envy and Wrath, nothing pushes his Berserk Button faster than seeing someone else look at his Love Interest (or worse, seeing his Love Interest look at someone else).

Naturally, this is often handled differently than the Clingy Jealous Girl. An irrationally jealous female partner is often used as an element of comedy, treated as "normal" or more inherently justified or sympathetic behavior for a woman, whereas the irrationally jealous male partner is more likely to be treated as if he has a serious flaw: he's portrayed less sympathetically, criticized more harshly by fans, less frequently played for comedy, and has a higher tendency to either rape the girl he's in love with or Murder the Hypotenuse, rather than drag the object of their affections away by the ear or pummel them into space with a Hyperspace Mallet. Interestingly, though, at the far end of jealous insanity, the Yandere is far more often female.

However, a guy obviously acting paranoid in a situation where there's no reason for him to be jealous, especially as a Running Gag, makes for comedic gold. As long as the comedy comes from making the guy look like a fool and not from making his partner suffer, it's okay (though the latter being funny isn't statistically impossible).

Of course, all bets are off when this trope is mixed with Boys' Love or Ho Yay, which is certainly not all that rare; in fact, the biggest Played for Laughs examples tend to come from this field.

May double as a Stalker with a Crush or Prince Charming Wannabe. Compare Friend Versus Lover for another strained triangular constellation.

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Examples:

• Anime & Manga
• Comic Books
• Fan Works
• Films - Live-Action
• Literature
• Live-Action TV
• Video Games
• Visual Novels
• Western Animation

Audio Play

• The Yandere Heaven series has one or both of the love interests fly into a fit of rage if he thinks the protagonist cares about someone else other than him. More often than not, he will contemplate the idea of killing the person he thinks is a threat so that he can receive all of the protagonist's love.

Comic Strips

• The Fortunes of Flossie has Flossie's boyfriend Bill. He's frequently short-tempered because he can't stand Flossie's insistence on putting her faith in fortune tellers, but he also gets violently upset with any man who tries to put the moves on his beloved. Bill's frustrations come to a head when he repeatedly finds himself fending off belligerent romantic advances made towards sweet, naïve Flossie by the scads of sleazy, so-called "seers" she insists on frequenting.
• Dirk in Luann, is introduced as the hulking, brutally jealous boyfriend of Brad's Love Interest Toni. She eventually dumps Dirk for his violent ways and ends up with Brad. Dirk later reappears as the neighborhood garbage collector.

Films — Animation

• In Balto, Steele has a Villainous Crush on Jenna, who doesn't reciprocate the sentiment and shows more interest in his rival, Balto. Needless to say, he doesn't take it well.
• Gaston of Disney's Beauty and the Beast. His Villainous Breakdown begins when he realizes Belle is in love with the Beast, sending him down into full-on murderous Yandere mode.
• A married variant in The Book of Life, Xibalba is very annoyed at La Muerte's cheering for Manolo. Gutierrez even describes him as the "jealous type".
• Brave: Downplayed with Fergus. He doesn't go "crazy", but he becomes extremely annoyed when the three Lords stare at a naked Elinor, who's only clothed by the tapestry.
• Judge Claude Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame. His whole deconstruction revolves around his sexual obsession with Esmeralda and his willingness to kill her along with her other two possible love interests, one of them being his adoptive son (whose mother he killed in the opening scene).
• Hal Stewart in Megamind goes crazy after Roxanne Ritchi rejects him for "intellectual dweeb" Bernard (who is actually Megamind himself in disguise).
• Moomin in Moomins on the Riviera is this towards Snorkmaiden whenever Clark is around.
• Mr. Peabody & Sherman: He may not fit the "crazy" part of the trope (for obvious reasons), but it's quite clear that Sherman has some traits of this towards Penny. However, unlike most cases, it's exclusively Played for Laughs, providing some of the film's funnier moments.
• Ralph Breaks the Internet: Ralph becomes a platonic version to Vanellope. His Insecurity Virus clones take it up a notch.
• The Chamberlain's motive in The True Story of Puss 'N Boots is to get rid of any men who may court the Princess. He even plans to create special candy if any other guy tries to hit on her.

Music

• "Run For Your Life" from The Beatles album Rubber Soul.
  "You know that I'm a wicked guy, and I was born with a jealous mind..."

• Eminem has several songs about this trope. Most infamously, his controversial Murder Ballad "Kim", but also "Crazy In Love", "Love You More" and "Love the Way You Lie".
  • In "Lady", he warns women not to toy with his emotions, because if he falls for them he'll become controlling and never let the woman have any independence - threatening to tattoo her with his name, force her to bury her body in layers of clothing in the height of summer, chain her to the bed, and kill her for staying out too late.
  • In his guest verse in P!nk's "Revenge", his belief his girl is cheating on him with every guy she meets leads him to start cheating on her to make a point.

• "Next Contestant" by Nickelback is about a guy who's always getting pissed off at other guys hitting on his girlfriend, and how if this continues, "somebody's getting hurt."
• Insane Clown Posse discuss the consequences of this trope in their recent song: "Over A Bitch".
• The Shania Twain song Don't Be Stupid is about the plight of a woman very much in love with her crazy jealous boyfriend, who interrogates her for making phone calls, talking to other men, or even painting her nails.
• "Got Jealous" by Hurt. The jealous guy in question decides to Murder the Hypotenuse.
• "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown" was the baddest man in the whole damn town, until he hit on a girl named Doris, and her jealous husband proved to be a bit badder than him.

• "Welcome Home" by Coheed and Cambria, especially exemplified in the music video:
  You could've been all I wanted
  But you weren't honest
  Now get in the ground!
• Nick Jonas's "Jealous" is about the singer talking about how he feels jealous of other guys looking at his girlfriend. He says that even though he knows that she loves him, he wonders if she wants the guy who's eyeing her. He even says that it's his right to be hellish and jealous towards anyone who wants her.
• "Genghis Khan" by Miike Snow is about a man who is possessive of his lover despite not being in a committed relationship with her.
• "Come A Little Bit Closer" by Jay and The Americans is about an American tourist in Mexico who gets on the bad side of one of these when said jealous guy's girlfriend starts flirting with him:
  Then the music stopped, when I looked, the café was empty
  Then I heard José say "Man, you know you're in trouble plenty..."
• Probably a different José appears in "Run For the Border" by Johnny Rodriguez. During a wild weekend in Mexico, a man suddenly kicks down the door. The narrator finds out a bit too late that the woman he's with left out a vital piece of information.
  "José, he's tall dark and handsome," she said as she reached for her clothes.
  "But he's mean as a snake when his woman you take, out from under his nose."
  I said, "This is a great time to tell me." She said, "I thought he was in jail.
  Yes, I'm José's wife, José's got a knife, and José is hot on your trail."
• And then there's "Smokey Joe's Cafe". Everyone warns the patron that the "chick" flirting with him is Smokey Joe's girl. Smokey Joe's reaction is relatively moderate; he pulls his chef's knife and tells the guy to finish his beans and get out.
• Eve 6's "Think Twice" is about a man who is jealous of another guy for being close to his lover.
• In Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory by Dream Theater, Victoria and Julian are murdered by Edward, who Victoria was cheating on Julian with, after they get back together. Edward then frames Julian by making it appear like a murder-suicide and using his political clout to get the media to go with it.
• The traditional ballad "Matty Groves" (made famous by Fairport Convention among others) has a jealous husband confront his naked wife's lover, giving him the advantage of first blow. It didn't work out very well for poor Matty, nor for the wife for that matter.
• The boyfriend in "i don't really like your boyfriend" by Avenue Beat is controlling and won't let the singer's friend go out to party without asking for permission first. The lyrics also say he treats her like his property. The singer cites these as the main reasons her friend should break up with him, believing she deserves better than "this piece of human trash".

Pro Wrestling

• Randy Savage, regarding Gorgeous George (not that one and not of that kind, the WCW one) and Miss Elizabeth. Of course, he usually turned out to be sort of justified in this behavior, as a lot of wrestlers were trying to steal them away from him.
• Vampire Warrior, otherwise known as Gangrel, found himself feuding with his wife in ECW when he found Luna Vachon in the promotion providing managerial services for Tommy Dreamer. Though Raven helped push him in this direction.
• Sami Callihan towards Daizee Haze, although the crazy was much more readily apparent than the jealousy, there was some of that too, as though he mainly stalked her through the International Wrestling Cartel, he also stole from and attacked students training in Ring of Honor to keep them away from Daizee (Haze being one of the ROH academy heads).
• Jimmy Jacobs, despite growing cold toward Lacey when he found out love doesn't conquer all, still loved Lacey and was still highly upset when it looked like she might prefer Colt Cabana (Which she did) or leave him for Austin Aries (which she did).
• Invoked by Catrina on Lucha Underground when she found out her old boyfriend Jeremiah Crane(who has a history of this) was dating the latest target of her sadism, Ivelisse Vélez. She intentionally used the fact Crane still loved her while fawning over Mil Muertes and telling him she loved someone else(who turned out to be Fenix) in order to make Crane jealous and cause him to break up with Velez.

Roleplay

• Double Subverted in Dawn of a New Age: Oldport Blues. Daigo, despite his creepy and villainous personality, seems to have no problem with his beloved girlfriend flirting with other men... but that's only because he thinks she's playing around. If she ever seriously acted on her flirtations, then he'd be pissed.

Theatre

• By Act III of Carmen, Don José has become this to the title character. Turns out, Carmen herself does not like men of this type, and she soon falls in love with a flashy, but very nice bullfighter named Escamillo.

• King George III appears as one to the American colonies in Hamilton, best exemplified in his song "You'll Be Back":
  When you're gone, I'll go mad
  So don't throw away this thing we've had
  'Cause when push comes to shove
  I will kill your friends and family... to remind you of my love!
• Demetrius and Lysander suffer a spell-induced version in A Midsummer Night's Dream.
• This turns out to be the Fatal Flaw of Othello, which is used by Iago to ruin him and ends up costing Desdemona her life.
• In The Saint of Bleecker Street by Gian-Carlo Menotti, Michel behaves in a jealous overprotective manner, not so much to his actual girlfriend, but to his sister Annina, scoffing at her religious piety and vowing to prevent her from Taking the Veil.
• Westeros: An American Musical: Littlefinger towards Sansa. When Sansa gets married for Altar Diplomacy purposes, Littlefinger doesn't attend the wedding, and the letter he leaves for her soon-to-be husband to explain his absence consists entirely of the words "Fuck you, she's mine".
• Leontes in The Winter's Tale, played for dark comedy — dark because of the tragic consequences, comedy because everyone lampshades how absurd his accusations are against his wife and best friend.

Webcomics

• Jung from Cheese in the Trap is this towards Sul. After each time he's angry at her for going on a blind date or spending time with a male friend, he apologizes and says he was just being childish, but his behaviour to the fake grandson and to Yoon Seop proves just how scary he can be if anyone puts Sul or his relationship with her in danger.
• Ace from Commander Kitty spends a long period in a slump after being ousted by Mittens. But a bit of Innocent Innuendo is all it takes to snap him out of it and turn him into something else.
• The Evolutions of Homosexuality and Suicide: In a pair of scenarios, one Stone Age man confronts another, thinking him to be hitting on his girlfriend (he is not). In the first scenario, the first man is unconvinced of the truth and strikes the second man on the head, killing him.
• Diego from Gunnerkrigg Court towards Jeanne. It's heavily implied that he sent Jeanne on a mission he knew would result in her death when he realized that she would never love him like she loved her forest-bound boyfriend.
• My Deepest Secret: Despite his yandere tendencies, Elios is surprisingly a downplayed example. While he is concerned that Emma may be seeing Brian behind his back, he’s not overly suspicious and believes her when she denies it, and the only reason he attacks Brian is because he tried to rape her.
• In Sinfest, Uncle Sam is frequently characterized like this, being paranoid about Lady Liberty cheating on him and/or sending the FBI to spy on her.
• Deimos to Cain, and evidently Cain to Abel, in Starfighter.
• Dillon of Sticky Dilly Buns demonstrates crazy comedy (and, this being Dillon, very gay) jealousy towards Jerzy, shadowing him in disguise to try and discover if he has any flaws — and whether he might be susceptible to a certain rival's charms. This doesn't go well; Dillon gets to discover more about his own flaws, and Ruby, who he roped in to assist, gets to practice her snarking.
• Sergio from This Is the Worst Idea You've Ever Had! is this turned up to 11. While Nicole finds him charming and mysterious, her friends are immediately wary of him due to how rude and dismissive he is of them, and they have good reason to be worried: it's revealed that he's a vampire who had a habit of becoming obsessed with a girl, turning her into a vampire so they can be "together forever", then eventually losing interest in her and moving on to another victim — and he intends to do this to Nicole, whether she wants it or not.
• Jack: The American Ghost: How Jack appeared when he was alive whenever it came to Misha. He even fired the lead singer of his band because he suspected he had a thing for her. Although one wonders whether some of his behavior around Aidan in the present was part of this. He did say it bugged him how Go-Eun would leave with a million dollars and a man.

Web Original

• This comes up a lot in Death Note: The Abridged Series (kpts4tv): 1) Ryuk towards Light-new rule of the Death Note: "Don't hug your girlfriend in front of your Shinigami-they get jealous" 2) Light towards L-Light happily resumes his plan to kill L after hearing that L "took Matsuda's innocence" after repeatedly rebuffing Light's advances. 3) Light (during his Memory Gambit) towards Misa after Misa returns from her job interview and informs them all that she met a God in the bathroom.
  L: Well, Light, you're taking this rather well.
  Light: I'm gonna kill that son of *bleeeeeeeep*
• Yamcha is a downplayed example of this over Bulma in Dragonball Z Abridged, but it's still there.
  Oolong: So Bulma, how's the single life treating you?
  Bulma: It's been really nice, thanks. I had a dream about Vegeta the other night.
  Yamcha: You slut!
  Bulma: We were walking in a park!
  Yamcha: You slut!
• The Nostalgia Critic in "The Review Must Go On". He refuses to leave Doug alone, demands to be brought back even though he'd always hated his job, wants Demo Reel dead, and just basically acts terrifying.
• Frank Doyle of The Thrilling Adventure Hour can get very jealous when he believes another man is genuinely interested in his wife Sadie. Sadie finds this trait of his cute up to a point. Episodes where his jealousy has reached a non-adorable tenor include "She Blinded Me with Seance", where he locks himself in their (walk-in) liquor cabinet rather than deal with Sadie's college friend constantly flirting with her, and "Basil's Day", where Frank meets Basil Valentine immediately after learning he was the man Sadie was with when a different ex-suitor of hers tried to Ret-Gone Frank. In that case, Frank was a fan of the man and could see how she might like him so was able to get over it quickly.
• Played for Laughs on the Tucker Budzyn video of Tucker getting jealous of Linda hugging and cuddling another dog. Subverted Trope at the end of the video.
• In Where the Bears Are, Nelson is incredibly jealous of Todd and imagines him in bed with every man who even talks to him.

Real Life

• The famous Filipino painter Juan Luna endured a particularly gruesome example of this trope. Luna's marriage with his wife, Maria, in Paris, became increasingly unstable as he harbored suspicions of her going out with a Frenchman. It didn't help that he was part of a family known for its legendary temper. In a fit of rage, he got hold of a gun, stormed to the room containing Maria and her mother, and shot both in the head, killing them. The murder charges filed against him were eventually done away with, possibly due to Parisian society then forgiving the crime of killing an unfaithful wife.
• Jake La Motta, whose obsessive jealousy of his wife was made into the film Raging Bull.
• A famous example is Burt Pugagh who, upon discovering his ex was engaged to another man, paid thugs to throw lye in her face, permanently blinding her. Amazingly, she ended up marrying him.
• Pamela Anderson has claimed Tommy Lee could sometimes be like this.
• Former adult film star Jenna Jameson writes in her autobiography of having a very possessive boyfriend.
• Despite being constantly unfaithful to her, O. J. Simpson was very jealous of other men showing interest in his wife Nicole, both when they were married and after they divorced. It's thought by many as a probable motive in her murder, as on seeing her with waiter Ronald Goldman (he was returning the glasses she'd left behind in the restaurant), a younger, handsome man (while OJ was slashing her tires - he had been stalking her after their divorce) he then killed them both with the knife. He had already been abusive during their marriage, and many survivors of this were very outraged by his acquittal in their murders, as many suffer this behavior quite often in reality, including with violence.
• John Sweeney, the boyfriend of actress Dominique Dunne, was very jealous, especially over actors with whom she did love scenes. She ended the relationship due to his abuse and possessiveness and was tragically killed by him. He was jailed for 6 1/2 years for manslaughter in 1983. The case provoked considerable controversy due to the perceived leniency of the sentence.
• Raoul Moat. After getting out of prison, his ex told him that she was in a relationship with a police officer (she was actually lying in an attempt to get him to leave her alone). He responded by posting threats to police and others on his Facebook profile and making further detailed threats in two subsequent letters and several phone calls to police stating he would continue to shoot police officers until he was dead. He then shot his ex and her new boyfriend (killing him and seriously injuring her), killed several other innocent bystanders and blinded a policeman. He later died of suicide after a standoff with police.
• Nikki Sixx wrote in the Mötley Crüe autobiography The Dirt that he planned to shoot his wife's lover in the testicles, but realized he would ruin his own life by doing so. He also wrote in his own memoir, The Heroin Diaries, that he planned on getting some bikers to break the legs of the actor Jack Wagner because he thought he had sex with his girlfriend while Motley Crue was touring.
• Eminem was put on probation for assaulting the man he claimed he saw kissing his wife, Kim.
• Richard Pryor admitted being like this when in a state of drug-fueled paranoia.
• Marilyn Manson wrote in his autobiography of witnessing his father behave like this towards his mother.
• Randy Savage was this both in and out of the ring towards his then valet/wife^note Randy Poffo and Elizabeth Hulette got married in Real Life in December 1984. They got "married" in the storyline at SummerSlam 91. Miss Elizabeth. There were several instances of Savage locking her in the dressing room whenever he left the room, along with the infamous rumor of him giving Hulk Hogan a black eye after she left Savage and moved in temporarily with the Hogans.
• Charles Bronson was very protective of his girlfriend and later wife Jill Ireland. When Jill guest-starred on the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "This Side of Paradise" as Spock's Love Interest, Bronson stayed on set to "keep an eye on her", making Leonard Nimoy very nervous.

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