Jerk with a Heart of Gold/Real Life

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


He's not very friendly, except when you need a friendly cat most.
  • Perhaps Oscar the cat might be an example of this. He's said to be unfriendly to patients, except when they don't have long to live (he seems to always know) in which case he cuddles up to them. It's as though the cat not only knows said patients are about to die but uses its cuddling to have people die happy... and reserves his cuddling for that particular purpose.

Dr. David Dosa: He is not a cat who will spend quality time with residents on the ward, unless they're about to die; he's not a cat that likes to spend a lot of time with staff; he keeps to himself.

  • Israelis stereotypically have this as their defining characteristic. It is known in Hebrew as "tzabar", and the English equivalent is Sabra. The Other Wiki states that this is named after the Indian Fig Opuntia cactus, which is "a tenacious, thorny desert plant with a thick hide that conceals a sweet, softer interior".
  • Clarinetist and bandleader Benny Goodman was rumoured to be a Jerk with a Heart of Gold. Many performers described him as being difficult to work with, due to his arrogance and perfectionism. But he secretly funded college educations for some of the musicians who worked under him. And if you said anything bad about his band members, you were in trouble.
  • Stephen Pastis, creator of Pearls Before Swine
  • Jillian Michaels is harsh, unforgiving, and without a doubt a Drill Sergeant Nasty, but when the chips are down and her contestants are in trouble, she is more than willing to cut through the crap and have a heart-to-heart - which usually results in a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming of truly magnificent proportions. She also tends to take her contestants' failures personally and is often the more overtly emotional of the two trainers.
  • Ty Cobb was an unrepentant bastard for most of his career, and indeed most of his life. However, he was one of the few players to support Major League Baseball's decision to integrate. After an he died, he left most of his fortune (an early investor in Coca Cola, he was very rich) to go towards building a hospital in his native Cobb County, Georgia, and to funding a scholarship for underprivledged Cobb County students. It should be noted that Cobb County is predominantly black, and for a white Southerner to do all that in The Fifties is downright awesome.
  • One waitress recalls an old man who was usually harsh, yet she put up with him because he was a regular customer. When he died, she was shocked to discover that he put in his will that she inherited five thousand dollars and his car.
  • Shorty Rossy of Pit Boss is an ex-con little person known for his short fuse, but he also rescues pit bulls along with running a talent agency for little people, and does his damnedest to help both groups (often risking his life and health to do it).
  • Christina Aguilera: She's considered by some to be a bitch, but she does put a lot of work into philanthropy and does value the people who have supported her career. Also works for the World Food Programme.
  • Patrick Wolf.
  • Genghis Khan.
    • Your Mileage May Vary. Temujin certainly had some positive traits such as deciding to institute laws which disregarded status and choosing aides based on merit rather than clannish insularity. He also engaged in Pragmatic Villainy, such as deciding that a tribute of silk from China collected annually was worth more to his long-term interests than butchering the people and taking their cities. He certainly had no problem with putting entire populations to the sword and claiming every last thing of value as plunder if a people submitted or were conquered. His ruthlessness may have hidden a complex character, but certainly not a nice one.
  • The Beatles:
    • Paul McCartney.
    • John Lennon, who had lots of problems with school but nevertheless showed a genuine caring heart toward the scarred world.
  • Warren Ellis: Warren himself and by proxy most of his heroes usually tend to come across as this. In his blog, on the surface he comes off as pretty grumpy, but there are plenty of entries that show he loves his fans, and he is very supportive of many young and independent comic book artists and other creative people, by bringing larger attention to them.
  • Michael Bay: The quality or lack thereof of his movies is rather debatable, and he has a reputation as an absolutely tyrannical director, but when he's not actually doing anything regarding movies he's reportedly quite nice, and he's shown himself to have quite a sense of humor on a number of occasions.
  • Spike Milligan could be one of these on a good day, or when dealing with children or animals. Everyone else...not so much, although it varied by the state of his bipolar disorder.
  • Harlan Ellison mixes this with Tsundere and takes it Up to Eleven. He is best known for being the walking, talking Trope Codifier for Jerkass, and yet... He is and was a tireless campaigner for human rights, a proponent of struggling writers, and apparently one of the most loyal and devoted friends you could ever have. Talk about Mood Whiplash.
  • Marlon Brando was known to be a bit of a heartbreaker who was difficult to work with in films and hard to interview, but his interest in civil rights and environmental issues shows that there was definitely some good in there.
  • In some ways, Vince Lombardi.
  • Sean Avery of the New York Rangers is widely considered the most hated player in the NHL [1], being essentially a professional jerk that trolls to get a reaction from other players and throw them off their game. However, he recently appeared in an ad supporting gay marriage, his reason being that he knew several gay friends in Los Angeles and New York, and that he felt it was right. While that ad sparked some backlash from some figures in the hockey world, there was a lot of backlash against that from many others, resulting in the, shall we say, unusual situation of Avery getting most of the support for his antics. (Maybe that was his ploy all along?)
  • Don Cherry, known as a Jerkass hockey commentator who is no stranger to offending people on the air with his extremely conservative views and rants against "left-wing pinkos", to the point where he has been accused of promoting hockey violence, is himself a real life supporter of charitable causes, and founded the Rose Cherry Home for Sick Children in honor of his longtime wife, Rose, who died in 1997.
  • American Apparel founder Dov Charny is said to be a wholly unpleasant man, and a lech on top of that, having been sued for sexual harassment several times. He's also one of the clothing industry's most passionate activists against sweatshops.
  • A lot of people who are autistic, or even just socially awkward, may occasionally seem mean, uncaring, or condescending, but that doesn't mean that they are. A lot of them are really great people, who just don't know how to socialize properly, so they end up acting in ways that can seem mean.
    • This can be true when it comes to cross-cultural interactions as well. Social customs can be very different across cultures, and it can make someone who is unfamiliar with the local customs seem like a jerk, even when they make every attempt to be nice and friendly.
    • One book in fact claimed that socially awkward people might be better understood by thinking of them as foreigners in their own country.
    • Speaking of autistic people, many of them experience the neurotypical people around them as this trope as well, for similar reasons. For example, "normal" people are often unaware of the sensory sensitivities of autistic individuals and may not take them serious due to lack of understanding, or a wrong idea of what autism is. However most of them aren't really jerks, it's rather that they suffer from the same empathy barrier towards their autistic fellows as autistic people do towards them.
  • Many individuals are distrusting, paranoid, and suspicious of people they don't know, and will not be the slightest bit friendly to most. Yet, this is just a survival instinct to deal with a world where things like hardened criminals, scams, and other terrible things happen. And when it comes down to it, they don't hate people in general, and in fact, can be quite caring and loyal to those who can get on their good sides.
  • Jack Dee puts on a very surly and humourless act for his comedic work. When out of his work, he's still deadpan but frequently promotes many good causes, often on his Twitter page he will retweet a lot of good links (missing people notices, charity links, important news articles related to it, etc.).
  • Simon Cowell is the stereotypical Mean Brit, seeing as he's the Trope Codifier, and when interacting with his fellow judges on the American X-Factor this continues, but watch the way he interacts with the girls in his group and he definitely shows a softer side with them. He also doesn't seem nearly as nasty in interviews, just a natural Deadpan Snarker who turns it Up to Eleven for the judging table.
  • Rwandan President Paul Kagame is well-known for not tolerating much dissent. He's also well-known for ending the Rwandan Genocide. Probably debatable if he's an example of this trope or Even Jerks Have Standards, though.
  • Almost every military leader of any rank has a switch they can throw at will from their default personality to the crazy bastard ready to rip your head off. It's usually reserved for subordinates whose screw-ups aren't simple accidents and for any instance of disrespect. Most military men and women are normal family folk underneath the uniform. The job requires they be ready to enforce ruthless discipline when they must.
  • Kanye West is known for his nearly endless self-aggrandizing comments, bouts of narcissism, interrupting Taylor Swift and saying that George Bush doesn't care about black people. He also clearly adores his (deceased, sadly) mother, starting and participating in a large number of charities, and criticizing the nigh-endless stream of homophobia in rap music.
  • Similarly, Eminem is known for his extremely violent and often misogynistic lyrics, but he cleaned up his drug problems (twice, which might make it better or worse) and is extremely protective of his daughters.
  • Buddy Rich, drummer extraordinaire, had a temper that could fly off the handle at any moment and there are several tapes of his yelling at his bandmates for next-to-nothing. According to one of his friends, Buddy had a soft heart and his favorite song was "Being Green" by Kermit the Frog.
  • Gordon Ramsay is apparently a genuinely nice guy in private, and praises and supports subordinates and pupils who perform well. Ramsay's virtues, however, do not include temperate language, even temper and a willingness to suffer fools gladly.
  1. ↑ that is, until 2012, when he was demoted to the Rangers' AHL affiliate, the Connecticut Whale (formerly the Hartford Wolf Pack)
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