27 Characters Who Have a Secret and Can Keep It
Lizzy Buczak
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Everyone lies, and everyone keeps secrets. It's human nature. The act of lying and keeping secrets tends to go hand-in-hand.
If you don't want someone to find out the truth, at some point, you'll have to tell them a lie. Some people are better at lying than others; it comes naturally to some while others couldn't tell a lie to save their own life.
We've rounded up a list of TV characters who have mastered the art of keeping a secret. Some of their secrets are innocent in nature, some have the potential to destroy, some cover-up mistakes of the past, some are kept to protect others, and a few are better left taken to the grave.
Before we launch into our gallery of best TV secret-keepers, I'll leave you with this TV show theme song quote: "two can keep a secret if one of them is dead."
Who would you add to the list?
1. The Pretty Little Liars
They aren't called "pretty little liars" for no reason. Aria, Spencer, Hannah, Emily, Alison, and Mona are the queens of keeping secrets. They're almost as good as 'A.' Almost.
2. The Perfectionists
The Perfectionists spawned from Pretty Little Liars and, you guessed it, involves a group of teens in a prestigious college keeping secrets and telling lies in order to survive their anonymous tormentor. It isn't a coincidence that OG liars Alison and Mona are teaching at the school.
3. The Good Girls
When you're burying dead bodies, you kind of have to keep it a secret. Beth, Ruby, and Annie's survival relies on keeping secrets. The housewives are forced to lie to protect their families after robbing a grocery store and inadvertently getting involved with a local gang member.
4. Hannah Montana
Miley Stewart has a major secret: she's living a double life. Every night she transforms into pop sensation Hannah Montana. She keeps her identity a secret from everyone except her best friend Lily, who takes on the secret identity of Lola.
5. Dead To Me Ladies
What happens when you accidentally murder someone and then befriend the dead man's wife? You keep it a secret, naturally. And that's exactly what Judy Hale does when she strikes up an unlikely friendship with widowed Jen.
6. Liza on Younger
Liza has been pretending to be 27-years-old for six seasons! There have been some close calls, but she's managed to lie her way out of all of them and protect her secret to salvage her gig in publishing. It cannot be a coincidence that Liza's name has the word lie in it.
7. Ladies of Big Little Lies
After accidentally killing Perry and covering it up, Jane, Celeste, Madeline, Bonnie, and Renata make a pact to never speak about what happened that night. When Perry's mother Mary Louise (Meryl Streep) blows into town and begins asking questions, they all do their best to cover up the truth.
8. Hope on Legacies
Not only does Hope keep her tribrid powers a secret from the mortal world, but she also lies to Landon about his mother, and eventually, makes the ultimate sacrifice to save her friends by jumping into Malivore and erasing herself from everyone's collective conscience. That's a lot of responsibility for a teen!
9. Sabrina on Chilling Adventures of Sabrina
Sabrina walks the line between the mortal and the supernatural world as she lies to her best friends about being a witch and later, about being the Dark Lord's chosen one.
10. Jack on This Is Us
Plenty of Jack's secrets surfaced after his untimely death. The biggest one is that the family man convinced his wife and children that his brother died in the war. Years later after a trip to Vietnam, Kevin learns that Nicky is still alive and harboring a secret of his own.
11. Siblings on Roswell
Max, Michael, and Isobel have been concealing the fact that they're aliens from a different planet since their pods landed in Roswell, New Mexico years ago. Of course, by the end of the first season, most of their friends in town have learned about their secret thanks to Max's romance with Liz.
12. Supergirl & Her Squad
Supergirl hides her true identity behind thickly-framed glasses and a journalist job at CatCo Media. If the people of National City knew Supergirl's real identity, it would put her and her loved ones in danger. But alas, Lena, Kara's closest friend who has been kept in the dark the longest, finds out the truth by the end of season 4.
13. Red on The Blacklist
Red's kept his whole identity under wraps for much of the series making him a complete enigma.
14. The Travelers
The travelers harbor a major secret -- they're people from the future inhabiting the bodies of people who have died on earth. In order to survive, they have to live covertly and never reveal their secret.
15. Danny on Grand Hotel
Danny leads a double life while working at the Riviera Grand using his wait-staff job to snoop around for clues that will shine a light on his sister, Sky's, disappearance. In addition to lying to everyone (except Jackson) about his true intentions, he's also romancing and taking advantage of Alicia while having a secret girlfriend back home.
16. Violet Bordelon on Queen Sugar
Violet knows all of the Bordelon family secrets but lives by the motto that some things are better off unsaid. We could all learn a thing or two from her.
17. Stahma Tarr on Defiance
Stahma possesses her own ambitions, which she keeps a secret from her husband, and during the third season, she kept the Omecs true plan a secret to the point where it became an invasion and endangered everyone.
18. Dan on Gossip Girl
Dan's secret may have been the one that knocked us all off of our feet: he's Gossip Girl. No one imagined nor predicted that Lonely Boy would be the gossiping blogger around town that ruined lives and exposed secrets while concealing his own identity.
19. The Desperate Housewives
Wisteria Lane was full of secrets, and those suburban secrets had fans invested for eight seasons. An affair with the gardener, covering up the accidental death of a daughter, secret identities, and tragic car accidents are just the tip of the iceberg in this shady suburb.
20. Cindy on Orange is the new black
After witnessing a crime, Cindy is forced to give an altered testimony, which incriminates her friend. She keeps the confession a secret, but the guilt of stabbing her friend in the back causes her emotional turmoil.
21. Emily Thorne on Revenge
The biggest lie of all? That Emily Thorne's name was actually Amanda Clarke! Amanda successfully adopted a false persona in order to move into the Hampton's and get revenge on the Grayson family for framing her father.
22. Pote Galvez on Queen of the South
Pote's secret weapon is his loyalty to Teresa. You could torture him to the point of killing him, and he still wouldn't give up any of her secrets.
23. Clark Kent on Smallville
Much like his cousin, Supergirl, Clark Kent is keeping the fact that he's Smallville's superhero. Later in the season, he hides that he's Superman. In addition to keeping his own secret, Clark tries to conceal as much supernatural information as possible.
24. Leroy Jethro Gibbs on NCIS
Gibbs is a man of few words, which means he's really good at keeping secrets. His biggest secret? That he killed the man who killed his wife and daughter.
25. Joe on You
Not only was sociopath Joe able to hide the fact that he was stalking Beth, but he was also able to cover up his deranged, serial killer tendencies long enough to make her fall in love with him. He also managed to get away with killing Beck and her best friend, Peach, and framing Beck's therapist for Beck's murder.
26. Elim Garak on Star Trek DS9
Though Garak was established as a harmless tailor on the space station, he's a character whose backstory is rich in secrets. He was once a high-ranking spy in the Cardassian Obsidian Order, and still uses his "particular set of skills” when necessary.
27. Oliver Queen on Arrow
Superheroes and vigilantes are really great at keeping secrets. Oliver Queen's secret identity is his Hood persona, Arrow. The masked vigilante fights crime and corruption in Star City with a bow and arrow.
