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{{trope}}
{{quote|''"Just because she's rich, doesn't mean she doesn't have problems."''
|Tony Stark regarding Whitney Stane, ''[[Iron Man: Armored Adventures]]''}}
{{quote|''"You're such a lucky girl," that's what they always say
''Rich and beautiful and bright
''They don't get to see what's hidden deep inside
''So, I feel all alone''
|''Etoile in ''[[Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure]]''}}
A type of [[Sour Grapes Tropes|Sour Grapes Trope]] in which wealthy kids are not allowed to have happy lives without the assistance of the plot, instead being made miserable for no particular reason other than having been born to rich parents. The reason being, of course, to show that it sucks to be rich anyway, by demonstrating how rich kids suffer [[Broken Aesop|for various reasons that have nothing in particular to do with being rich]]. That being said, the easiest way for a writer to justify this one is simple: lots of rich parents got that way because they have [[Married to the Job|no life outside of their career]], and this means a rich parent [[When You Coming Home, Dad?|cuts back on time with the family]]. Plus, rich people are inhumanely cold anyway.
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{{examples}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* Keisaku Satou in ''[[Shakugan no Shana]]''. He's not a totally straight example (as he does have a friend in Eita), but otherwise he fits. He's rich as hell, bored and slightly depressed with it, and feels like he has no purpose. Then [[Ms. Fanservice|Margery]] [[Action Girl|Daw]] enters his life, and he falls for her, and unlike Eita, who eventually decides to gracefully decline further service to her mission as a Flame Haze, he still helps her for no benefit to himself, mostly because her presence in his life is removing the "Lonely" from the trope title. In fact, even after she catches on and tries to tell him her [[Dark and Troubled Past]] to keep him at arms length, it only draws him closer to her.
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* Minto Aizawa from ''[[Tokyo Mew Mew]]'', who initially [[Jumped At the Call]] but refused the built-in gang of [[True Companions]] out of snobbery. She gets better, though, especially when Zakuro shows up and her [[Fan Girl]] side kicks in.
* Christopher "Chris" Thorndyke in ''[[Sonic X]]'', even though his grandfather is around most of the time and he has several friends at school.
* Aversion: Mihama Chiyo out of ''[[Azumanga Daioh]]'' is shown as by far the richest of the girls, and has other reasons that she'd be isolated ... and is of course one of the happiest and most well-liked of her class. Not insanely happy, but generally [[Cheerful Child|cheerful]]. Granted, the audience never sees her parents, but they're never implied to be ''gone'', just
** Her dad seems to enjoy his life as an extradimensional talking cat secret agent who may or may not be [[media:s true identity.jpg|Santa Claus]].
* Extra points for ''[[Great Teacher Onizuka]]''. Nanako's parents started out poor and nice and became less pleasant as they got rich. The protagonist solves the family problem without bankrupting them, however. With a sledgehammer.
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* The entire main cast of the anime ''[[Special A]]'' qualifies thanks to various relationship traumas during their childhood.
* ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam SEED]]'''s [[Ace Pilot]] and [[Big Brother Mentor]] Mu La Flaga was one of these as a child, courtesy of being rejected and disowned by his father, {{spoiler|who had himself cloned in order to produce a more worthy heir}}. Also, Flay Alster starts as one of them, as her father George is an important politician whom she barely gets to see and her mother died when she was a little girl.
* Ai Shinozaki, the [[Tall, Dark and Bishoujo]] Ojou from ''[[Hell Teacher Nube]]''. Lampshaded when she reveals her loneliness
* Relena Darlian from ''[[Mobile Suit Gundam Wing]]'' is quite popular at her high-class school but doesn't seem to have any real friends at first, just admirers and would-be suitors. She seems to be aware of her Lonely Rich Kid condition, too, and while she's polite to the other kids she doesn't approach them either. Even her beloved father is (unwillingly) distant due to his ''extremely'' demanding job. At first, her only friend seems to be her grandfatherly butler/chauffeur Pagan... until she meets [[The Stoic]] [[Hitman with a Heart]] protagonist and her life starts changing.
* Hazuki Fujiwara from ''[[Ojamajo Doremi]]''. Her father is a famous movie director and her mother is a popular fashion designer, but as much as they ''do'' genuinely care for her, they're so absorbed in their work that Hazuki's more usual companions are her landlady and the other Ojamajo.
** The local [[Alpha Bitch]], Reika Tamaki, also hits this trope to some degree. Her dad spoils her because he doesn't want to make her cry, but that shapes her into a spoiled Alpha Bitch [[Heroic BSOD|who has a complete emotional meltdown]] when she starts doubting if her dad ''really'' loves her.
** But averted with Onpu Segawa, who, when confronted with an empty house and a cold plate of plastic-wrapped food(on Christmas!) just went out to have fun with the other girls.
* Eri Sawachika from ''[[School Rumble]]'' is an
* Nagi Sanzennin from ''[[Hayate the Combat Butler]]'' pretty much gets hit full force by all aspects of this trope. Her parents are mentioned sometimes, but are practically nonexistent (both of them died when she was little). She's hesitant to even go outside her own house because every time she does, somebody tries to kidnap her for her wealth. Pretty much her only friends are fellow Lonely Rich Kids, the servants she keeps around (including Hayate), and her pet tiger Tama.
** {{spoiler|Athena Tennos}} is another, ''specially'' in her backstory {{spoiler|More exactly, when she kicks Hayate out after their fight, but almost immediately falls into despair due to being magically locked in a [[Gilded Cage]]-like mansion.}}
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** Nishikado Sohjirou seems at first to be immune from this, but as more of his home life is revealed, he is shown to have parents who are highly emotionally distant and an older brother who abandoned the family business, leaving him to be [[The Dutiful Son]]. This is [[Freudian Excuse|assumed to be the cause of his inability]] [[Casanova|to develop lasting relationships]].
** Mimasaka Akira seems to be the only member immune from this despite that, at least in the j-Drama, his father is a [[Yakuza]] boss. In all incarnations, having a mother who acts like an [[Adult Child]] seems to be why he [[Likes Older Women]].
* Sumire Kanzaki in the anime adaptation of ''[[Sakura Taisen]]''. Her father and grandfather were so absorbed into work that she was left emotionally scarred and doubtful about their love for her. {{spoiler|Reversed later, when her dad appears and is revealed to be a rather decent guy otherwise and even apologizes to Sumire for not being able to spend more time with her. She forgives him.}}.
** However, there's a rich kid who's even ''more'' lonely in the group: Vicomtesse Iris Chateaubriand. Her parents were so scared of her enormous [[Psychic Powers]] that they locked her away in her fancy bedroom, and her only company were her dolls and teddies until Ayame Fujieda recruited her; Iris became [[Shrinking Violet|extremely withdrawn and scared of everyone]] as a consequence, holding on her
* In ''[[Captain Tsubasa]]'', El Si Pierre is the son of a French nobleman and tycoon who is ''not'' willing to have others treating him like a [[The White Prince|a frail White Prince]], like it happened in his early years (some manga panels show young Pierre sitting with his books while the kids around him seem too scared to get close). So, to prove to others that he's just like them and he doesn't want any privileges, Pierre starts practising soccer.
** Similarly, Mark Owairan is a ''real'' Arabian prince who spent several years locked inside his father's palace and discovered soccer only when he went out of his [[Gilded Cage]] with his bodyguards and saw a bunch of children playing in the streets. He's so fascinated that he begins training and playing, rising to the top thanks to his own merits and not to his family's influences.
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* This is [[Rich Bitch]] Mayu Miyuki's [[Freudian Excuse]] in ''[[Ai Yori Aoshi]]''.
* Kunugi-tan from ''[[Binchou Tan]]''.
* Kuno from ''[[Ranma ½]]'' could be considered a bizarre variation even though he's rarely sympathetic. He lives in a mansion occupied by no one but his sister Kodachi and only has one unpaid
* Isabella from ''[[Paradise Kiss]]'' was raised by her butler, and also had the issues you'd expect from a little [[Ojou]] [[Transsexualism|trapped in a little rich boy's body]].
* The truth is that most to all of the Ushiromiya cousins from ''[[Umineko no Naku Koro ni]]'' probably could qualify for this - they all (except for George, {{spoiler|and even he runs into some issues when he wants to marry [[Meido|Shannon]]}}) seem to have rather strained relationships with their parents, who in turn have issues with their ''own'' father. However, as far as outright [[Parental Abandonment]] is concerned, Ange probably gets the truckload - by the time we meet her, her entire family {{spoiler|save one}} is dead.
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* Hiroko "Hiro-chan" Kaizuka from ''[[Narutaru]]'' is particularly a tragic case. Her [[Abusive Parents|parents]] cared more for her grades in school than her emotional well-being (although her bullies wanted to lower her learning curve) and her father cut ties with her only friends. So it's no wonder the [[Beware the Nice Ones|girl]] [[Yandere|snapped]] once they and her bullies [[Break the Cutie|broke her]] and she {{spoiler|went on a [[Roaring Rampage of Revenge]] and kills [[Self-Made Orphan|both her parents]] ''and'' her bullies.}}
* Sanka Rea of ''[[Sankarea]]'' has a ''massive'' list of problems. It says a lot that dying and coming back as a zombie is an '''''improvement'''''.
* An episode
** Shinichi himself may count to a degree. His parents do love him, but they spend much more time in the USA than in Japan and, until he got shrunk and went to live with the Mouris, they left him alone in their [[Big Fancy House]].
* Oz from ''[[Pandora Hearts]]'' is this in spades.
* Usui from ''[[Kaichou wa Maid-sama]]''.
* Tamaki from ''[[Ouran High School Host Club]]''. Double because he's {{spoiler|an [[Heroic Bastard]] as well.}}
* Tomoko Saeki's [[Freudian Excuse]] in ''[[DNA²]]'' is how she's the richest girl at school, but is also desperately lonely. Not helped by how her mother died when she was a child, her dad works abroads, and her boyfriend Ryuuji is a [[Jerkass]].
* Farnese from ''[[Berserk]]''. Her older siblings were generations apart, her father was always away on business, and her mother took no role in parenting since she was always out partying. Thus, Farnese developed some, [[Pyromaniac|problems]] ([[A Date with Rosie Palms|and urges]]) due to a sense of [[Parental Abandonment]], and would terrorize her servants and kill pets that didn't reach her expectations. This wasn't made any better when she was given a military position whose [[Knight Templar|purpose was to]] [[Kill It with Fire|burn people at the stake...]]
* Syaoran from ''[[Cardcaptor Sakura]]''.
* Yukio from ''[[Bleach]]''. {{spoiler|Doubling as a [[Cute Psycho]].}}
* Minowa Hijiri from ''[[Bakuon!!]]'' appears to have been one somehow before joining the motorcycling club around which the series revolves.
* ''[[K-On!]]'': Tsumugi Kotobuki was very much [[The Ojou]] before joining the Light Music Club, and takes a very genuine delight in doing all kinds of mundane things the other girls do everyday and take for granted.
== Comic Books ==
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** And that was after their relationship ''improved''. Initially Tim's parents paid him so little attention that he focused on ''Batman'' (who he had seen exactly once, to boot) as a parental substitute.
* Cecilia from ''[[Yoko Tsuno]]'', a sheltered and naive Scottish noblewoman who was pretty much locked away in the family castle after the death of her mother.
* ''[https://web.archive.org/web/20131029150620/http://indyplanet.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=3429 Gemini Storm]'' has Julia Hamilton, who's so lonely she doesn't know anyone who attends her birthday parties.
* Lord Snooty in his first ''[[The Beano]]'' strip - then he slipped away from Bunkerton Castle and made friends with the Ash Can Alley Gang.
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* Tsuruya's backstory in ''[[Kyon: Big Damn Hero]]'' portray her like that. She's afraid to let [[I Just Want to Have Friends|people close to her]] because of [[Yakuza|her family business]].
* Blaine in ''[[Hunting the Unicorn]]'' is shown to be this—though he has [[True Companions|the Warblers]], [[Parental Substitute|Greg,]] and [[Official Couple|Kurt,]] his father is [[Parental Neglect|neglectful]], his mother is [[Values Dissonance|extremely old-fashioned,]] and his siblings are [[When You Coming Home, Dad?|traveling constantly or studying in California]]. It's a [[Cerebus Retcon]] of his [[Relationship Sue|canon portrayal]], which turns him into a [[Love Martyr]] [[Extreme Doormat|who goes along with everything Kurt says]] because he doesn't want yet another person to leave him. {{spoiler|Like the first guy he slept with.}}
* Alfred's backstory in ''[[Part Right, Half Wrong, a Third Crazy]]''. His father was incredibly rich, and also emotionally distant/neglectful to the point of pretty much replying to any of Al's attempts to form a relationship between them with "I don't have time for that shit". He's also implied to not have had any real friends until college, and even then they were more people he got high with than people he actually talked to and/or liked.
== Film ==
* Jenny from ''[[Oliver and Company]]''. Her parents were too busy to come home for her birthday, but when Jenny met Oliver and took him in, she perks up.
* Eric from ''[[The Toy]]'' is a lonely kid deep down, but it's hard to notice that since he tries to get attention by acting like a horrible little bastard.
* Ridley in ''[[Diary of the Dead]]''
* The movie version of ''[[Richie Rich (
* Jane and Michael Banks in ''[[Mary Poppins]]''.
** Michael's children in ''[[Mary Poppins Returns]]'' seem much better off in this regard; then again, it's [[The Great Depression]] and Michael's not exactly rich.
* Kiara from ''[[The Lion King|The Lion King 2]]''.
* In the movie ''[[Arthur (film)|Arthur]]'', Arthur Bach is a Lonely Rich Kid despite not ''physically'' being a kid.
* Lucas in [[Lucas (film)|the film of the same name]] paints himself as this, explaining that his parents are "superficial" people who take no interest in him, don't meet with other parents, and don't want him inviting friends over or giving out his phone number. At the end, one of his friends reveals that he lives in a trailer with an alcoholic father.
* In ''[[The Last Emperor]]'', Pu Yi who has the eponymous title cannot leave the Forbidden City despite being curious about the outside world; his tutor R.J. said, "I think the Emperor is the loneliest boy on earth."
* In one of the ''[[Eloise]]'' movies, Eloise befriends a child at the plaza named Leon, who is actually a prince. He isn't used to having friends because royalty and his father isolated him, so in an effort to keep friends he does not reveal his status to Eloise.
* Deconstructed in ''[[That Championship Season]]''. Phil was this as a kid, and now is almost 40 but he still doesn't know if people like him for who he is or for his money.
* Unlike the [[Complete Monster]] he was in the comics, Red Mist from ''[[Kick-Ass (film)|Kick-Ass]]'' was played more sympathetically with this trope.
* ''[[Poor Little Rich Girl]]'', made in 1917, may be the Trope Codifier in film.
== Literature ==
* [[Teen Genius]] [[Villain Protagonist]] ''[[Artemis Fowl]]'' fits this quite well, though his lack of friends seems to be by choice, and {{spoiler|his [[Parental Abandonment]] is actually remedied as the series goes on.}}
** Played straight in the beginning of the ''Artemis Fowl'' series, but increasingly averted as the series progresses. Oh yes, and the reason he was hunting fairies in the first place was to rebuild the lost family fortune, for the expressed purpose of locating his missing father. {{spoiler|Which he finally succeeds at in the Arctic Incident.}}
* Holden Caulfield in ''[[The Catcher in the Rye]]''.
* Prince Brat in the novel ''[[The Whipping Boy]]''.
* Chance the Gardener in ''[[Being There]]'' is a variation. He was raised by a wealthy man but was forcibly confined to the townhouse ''all his life'' due to his mental retardation. So as the story opens, Chance is middle-aged but otherwise he fits the trope: he's attended to by a maid; he spends his days eating, sleeping, tending to a garden, and watching television; and he has no friends. Perhaps luckily, the poor guy doesn't ''know'' he's not living a normal life. When he's forced to leave the house after the master's death, he winds up befriending and enriching the lives of Eve and Ben Rand, a married couple who also serve as adult versions of this trope.
* In ''[[Hating Alison Ashley]]'' Erica, already dissatisfied with her middle-class family, is very jealous of the rich new girl, Alison Ashley. It takes her the whole book to realise that maybe having parents who bother to turn up to the school play you are starring in is more important than a fancy house and your own room.
* Terisa Morgan in ''[[Mordant's Need]]''.
* Alek, prince of the Austria-Hungary empire in ''[[Leviathan (novel)|Leviathan]]''.
* Lila Fowler of the ''[[Sweet Valley High]]'' series is normally proud of her status as the richest girl in town and unafraid to flaunt how awesome and cool she is, but she's had her moments of crying over how she hardly ever sees her busy, emotionally distant father and has a [[Missing Mom]] and being envious of the Wakefield twins for having the perfect family.
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* Hanno Buddenbrook in Thomas Mann's ''[[Buddenbrooks]]''.
* Colin from ''[[The Secret Garden]]''.
* This trope is used a lot in ''[[Harry Potter]]
** Harry himself - he's very wealthy, but the tragedy just rolls on and on and on, especially when it comes to [[Parental Abandonment]]. Not only do ALL his parental figures end up dead, but his illusions about them are also shattered. Poor Harry's forced to face their past sins and suffer for them even when they don't seem bothered by them at all.
** Sirius Black - also from a very wealthy family, but clearly had a terrible home life and ended up running away at the age of 16. His [[Heterosexual Life Partner]] is murdered when they're still very young and he spends almost his entire adult life in prison for the murder, even though he didn't commit it. {{spoiler|And then he dies.}} Judging from the memories Harry sees, he had a cruel streak and helped his best friend bully other students, and apparently his popularity was primarily based in shallowness and his friendship with James. We also know that he didn't trust Lupin during their years in the Order together, and that ''no one'', including Dumbledore, argued in his defense when he was arrested for James' murder. This implies that James was his only true friend until after he escaped Azkaban. There certainly didn't seem to be anyone else in his life that he could rely on.
*** It's not that no one spoke up in his defence - it's that ''no one got the chance''. Barty Crouch ordered Sirius sent to Azkaban without a trial, so Sirius had no chance to say it was Pettigrew who betrayed them. Dumbledore also probably didn't know Sirius was innocent in the first place - his actions in book 3 imply that Sirius' story was all new to him, and Sirius and the Potters told no one else they switched Secret Keepers. All we know for sure is that Dumbledore first cast the charm that made Sirius the Secret Keeper, but he wasn't necessarily involved in changing the Secret Keeper to Pettigrew.
** Draco Malfoy - despite being a racist bully, it can't be denied that he gets most of that smugness battered out of him in the later books. Parental abandonment in the form of imprisonment, and he never seems to have any close friends that he considers his equal.
* Danny Saunders in ''[[The Chosen]]'' isn't rich but he does have a
== Live Action TV ==
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* Sylvester Le Fey and Lady Cutler's son Benjamin, in the ''[[Jonathan Creek]]'' episode "The Scented Room". His parents were constantly fighting, fired the nanny because she was "spoiling" him, and were so clueless about the concept of "fun" that when he said he wanted a treehouse, they built him one with an elevator, so he wouldn't spoil his clothes. When he restores the stolen painting, Maddie suggests to Lady Cutler that he could use her reward money to buy something he really needed ... like a life.
* Elliot Reed from ''[[Scrubs]]''. At least she had a Hispanic nanny to give her "cheer-up hugs"?
* Really, three out of four members of ''[[Gossip Girl]]''{{'}}s [[True Companions|Non-Judging Breakfast Club]] could qualify. Nate might be an arguable case, since at least his mom seems to have been the stay-at-home type even if she's not exactly Mother Of The Year. But Blair's father left her to move to France with his gay lover and her mother was absent a lot (and when present, drove Blair to an eating disorder), and Chuck's father kind of hated him for having [[Death by Childbirth|killed his mother]].
* Steve Wilde from ''[[Running Wilde]]'' was not only a lonely rich kid, he grew into a lonely rich adult.
* Martin from the Swedish TV series ''[[Ebba och Didrik]]''.
* Stevie Van Lowe on ''[[The Parkers]]'' had this type of childhood. She frequently says that the help were better parents than her own mom and dad who didn't spend any time with her. She's quite bitter about it and would have been a [[Rich Bitch]] if she didn't have her friends and school to fall back on.
* Henry Mills from ''[[Once Upon a Time (TV series)|Once Upon a Time]]'' is described by Regina as "not having any friends and being kind of a loner."
== Music ==▼
== Video Games ==
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* Niccolo in ''[[Boy Aurus]]'' due to his father's riches being from organized crime.
* Ashley Madder in ''[[Tales Of Gnosis College]]'' has a wealthy (and thuggish) Senator for a father who regards her as an ornament to his political career. She seems to have trouble making real friends and acts out.
== Web Original ==
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* [[The Nostalgia Chick]] grew up in the richer part of Tennessee and got spoiled enough to become a bit of a [[Gold Digger]], but she was also felt isolated and abused.
* [[The Nostalgia Critic]] has plenty of money and whines all the time after Christmas because he didn't get ''one'' specific pressie out of millions, but his childhood, while over the top, is practically built out of [[Adult Fear]].
▲== Music ==
▲* The premise of the [[Britney Spears]] song "Lucky."
== Western Animation ==
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* Eric from ''[[Dungeons and Dragons (animation)|Dungeons and Dragons]]'' is hinted to have been like this in the past. Might explain quite a bit of his behavior, if you look at it closely.
* Eddie from ''[[Class of 3000]]''. "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnYzUqG65VM A Richer Shade of Blue]" pretty much sums it up.
== Real Life ==
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