History Main / LooseLips

When this is subverted, it can become FeedTheMole. A subtrope of SayingTooMuch. See also EndangeringNewsBroadcast when it happens to be broadcasted unintentionally.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSpongeBobSquarePantsMovie'': Plankton calls Squidward this for deciding to confront him upon finding out about his evil plan, ''then'' threatening to take it up to King Neptune. This allows Plankton to prevent Squidward from doing this by activating the bucket helmets he's given to the entire populace to turn them into his slaves, with his first order being to subject the Squid to the same fate. He even calls Squidward "Inspector Loose Lips" for his foolish mistake.

* Creator/TomHolland has gotten a reputation for spilling secrets for movies he's in. It's gotten so bad that he wasn't allowed to read the whole script for ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar''. The directors, the Russo brothers, joke [[spoiler:about how allowing him to improvise his death scene was the only way to keep him from spoiling it.]] He spoiled that he was staring in the film adaptation of ''VideoGame/{{Uncharted}}'' by posting a picture of himself playing the games "for research" to Instagram. His casting has yet to be officially confirmed by Creator/{{Sony}}. He even spoiled the plot of ''Film/JurassicWorldFallenKingdom'' to Creator/ChrisPratt despite Pratt being the star of the movie. This habit of his even got lampshaded in the second trailer for ''Film/SpiderManFarFromHome'', which began with Tom telling the audience that the trailer had spoilers for ''Film/AvengersEndgame''.

** Let's just say that Sebastian and his big mouth certainly split the beans to King Triton who found out about Ariel's rescue for Eric and her grotto. [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone Sebastian soon regrets his mistake afterwards]].

See CannotKeepASecret for characters who tend to do this all the time. Compare IdioticPartnerConfession.

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[[quoteright:299:[[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tellingafriend.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:299:And that's why [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loose_lips_sink_ships loose lips might sink ships]].]]

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* ''Fanfic/ACertainDrollHivemind'': From "Guest Entry - Mikoto": one of Misaka's thoughts to use a FakeHigh to cause this in Uiharu:
--> her precinct uses some really nasty frequency jumping algorithms and encryption tricks that makes it harder than Anti-Skill's stuff. Hmm. Note to self - buy Uiharu some rum and raisin ice cream and see if that has a placebo effect that gets her tipsy so she talks about how she implemented it. It's starting to get on my nerves that I can't reliably listen in.

* ''Film/WhoFramedRogerRabbit'' has the main character asking a few too many people where the detective's office is, allowing the bad guys to figure out where he's going.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSpongeBobSquarePantsMovie'': Plankton calls Squidward this for deciding to confront him upon finding out about his evil plan, ''then'' threatening to take it up to King Neptune. This allows Plankton to prevent Squidward from doing this by activating the bucket helmets he's given to the entire populace to turn them into his slaves, with his first order being to subject the Squid to the same fate. He even calls Squidward "Inspector Loose Lips" for his foolish mistake.

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Cinderella}}'', a subtle example is when the titular character becomes star-struck upon learning that the man she danced with at the ball was the prince and that he was looking for her. She becomes so distracted that she forgets to use discretion when preparing for his arrival (dancing and humming to herself) that she unwittingly tips off her stepmother that she was the mystery girl at the ball.

* ''Literature/ProfessorMmaasLecture'': Professor Soul's Second Assistant, a termite who is a born snitch--literally. He's been born with auditory organs all over his body and is constantly registering so much input that he feels a physical need to dump this baggage out of his memory onto a number of interested termites.

* In ''Literature/GatheringBlue'', Kira tells councilman Jamison that her dyeing teacher claimed that the woods surrounding the village aren't actually full of "beasts." [[spoiler:This gets Annabella killed since the council invented the beasts in order to scare the villagers.]]

* ''{{Series/Hanna}}'': Carmichael takes an interest in the Utrax program because he wants to use it to cover up a serious indiscretion of his. While drunk, he tried to recruit a friend into the Pioneer group and revealed too much information about their plans. The friend was repulsed by what Pioneer was doing and stole a document from Carmichael that could expose the entire conspiracy. If the leaders of Pioneer find out that Carmichael was the leak, he will be killed for it. [[spoiler: When Marrissa finds this out, she blackmails Carmichael into covering up her and Hanna's actions.]]

* ''VideoGame/BlazBlue'' has this trope used to rather devastating effect against its invoker. After a fight, [[BadBoss Hazama]] tells [[PluckyGirl Makoto]], in no uncertain terms, about [[MadScientist Relius Clover's]] "random and untoward" interest in her before making an attempt on her life (and [[HarmlessFreezing getting frozen by Jin for it]]). He ''really'' should have picked a better compliment in hindsight. [[labelnote:Why?]]Hazama sends Relius after Makoto, and he eventually 'escorts' Jin out of Ronin-gai as bait. Bang's keen-eyed disciple spots the masked creeper and reports to his superior, who passes the info to Makoto - with this information and Relius' mention in the report on Noel, she [[TakeAThirdOption chooses to send Bang after Jin (and Relius) while she attends to Noel and Tsubaki]]. The long-term consequences are still being explored, but without Relius to restrain her, [[SpannerInTheWorks Hazama's plans fell apart soon after]].[[/labelnote]]

* The ''WesternAnimation/PrivateSnafu'' short "Spies": Snafu brags about how he'll never tell the secret information he knows, but he carelessly drops hints which are eagerly picked up by hidden spies.
* In the ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' season 5 premiere, Pinkie Pie spills the beans that some ponies miss their cutie marks when visiting a small village where every pony has their cutie mark taken away, prompting the BigBad to do the same to the heroines.

--> '''Tag:'' I mean if you know about this church, then soon the whole galaxy will, and anyone with a grudge against Jedi will come to Jakku and burn the whole bloody village down.

Because TechnologyMarchesOn, it's even easier than ever to get people killed by running your mouth off, thanks to websites such as Website/{{Twitter}}, Website/{{Facebook}}, TVTropes, and [[Wiki/{{Wikipedia}} that other wiki]]. Always beware that when you talk about something that is privileged or secret, you might as well be standing on a rooftop with a big sign and a megaphone.

* As mentioned above, the [[TropeNamers Trope Namer]] is the slogan from UsefulNotes/WorldWarII, reminding people to be careful what they talk about in public, lest Axis spies pick up valuable clues.
** Another poster showed a Nazi putting a puzzle together that said "The Convoy Sails for England Tonight". The caption was "bits of careless talk are pieced together by the enemy."

* Japanese sub-hunters during World War II habitually set their depth charges to a depth shallower than the diving capacity of most US submarines -- until Andrew Jackson May, a Congressman, mentioned this in a press conference. The Japanese immediately started setting their depth charges deeper, likely costing several submarines and their crews because one of their elected representatives couldn't keep his mouth shut.

* In the ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyFriendshipIsMagic'' season 5 premiere, Pinkie Pie spills the beans that some ponies miss their cutie marks when visiting a small village where every pony has their cutie mark taken away, prompting the BigBad to do the same to the our heroines.

* in 2015, a localizer for Nintendo of America appeared on a podcast to talk about Nintendo related topics. One of the topics the person talked about was why Nintendo doesn't bother localizing certain games. Not only did the localizer break the nondisclosure agreement, but his loose lips also made Nintendo look bad by basically telling people that Nintendo won't localize a game that they think won't make them any profits in the long run (while it is the harsh truth, it makes Nintendo look like they'll only make games that will make them money rather than making something that the fans want). The man was promptly fired.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSpongeBobSquarePantsMovie'': Plankton calls Squidward this for deciding to confront him upon finding out about his evil plan, ''then'' threatening to take it up to King Neptune. This allows Plankton to prevent Squidward from doing this by activating the bucket helmets he's given to the entire populace to turn them into his slaves, with his first order being to subject the Squid to the same fate. He even calls Squidward "Inspector Looselips" for his foolish mistake.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheSpongeBobSquarePantsMovie'': Plankton calls Squidward this for deciding to confront him upon finding out about his evil plan, ''then'' threatening to take it up to King Neptune. This allows Plankton to prevent Squidward from doing this by activating the bucket helmets he's given to the entire populace to turn them into his slaves, with his first order being to subject the Squid to the same fate.

* The ''WesternAnimation/PrivateSnafu'' short "Spies": Snafu brags about how he'll never tell the secret information he knows, but he carelessly drops hints which are eagerly picked up by hidden spies.

* ''WesternAnimation/BojackHorseman'': When investigating [[spoiler: Sarah Lynn's death]], IntrepidReporter Paige Sinclair hits upon the idea of trying to get info from attendees of the AA meetings she was said to have been in. Maximilian is skeptical, since the second 'A' stands for 'Anonymous' after all, but Paige claims that people just wouldn't be able to resist gossiping about celebrities. Sure enough they find one that remembers [[spoiler: Sarah Lynn]] being there, along with a horse whose name he couldn't remember (Bojack, obviously), but he ''did'' remember the name of the girl from New Mexico the horse talked about, leading to Paige's next move: [[spoiler: to interview Penny.]]

* ''ComicBook/WonderWoman1942'': Long before she crafted herself a costume and became ComicBook/{{Cheetah}} out of envy for the attention Wonder Woman gets Priscilla Rich was making a bit of extra money on the side by selling military secrets to Imperial Japan. She gained knowledge of said secrets by being friends with/blackmailing/terrorizing the wives of military officers who shared more than they should have with their spouses. She later terrified a mind reader into working for her, meaning that military wives didn't even need to say anything for Pris to steal information from them.

* Japanese sub-hunters during World War II habitually set their depth charges to a depth shallower than the diving capacity of most US submarines -- until a Congressman mentioned this in a press conference. The Japanese immediately started setting their depth charges deeper, likely costing several submarines and their crews because one of their elected representatives couldn't keep his mouth shut.

* Creator/TomHolland has gotten a reputation for spilling secrets for movies he's in. It's gotten so bad that he wasn't allowed to read the whole script for ''Film/AvengersInfinityWar''. The directors, the Russo brothers, joke [[spoiler:about how allowing him to improvise his death scene was the only way to keep him from spoiling it.]] He spoiled that he was staring in the film adaptation of ''VideoGame/{{Uncharted}}'' by posting a picture of himself playing the games "for research" to Instagram. His casting has yet to be officially confirmed by Creator/{{Sony}}. He even spoiled the plot of ''Film/JurassicWorldFallenKingdom'' to Creator/ChrisPratt despite Pratt being the star of the movie.
** This habit of his even got lampshaded in the second trailer for ''Film/SpiderManFarFromHome'', which began with Tom telling the audience that the trailer had spoilers for ''Film/AvengersEndgame''.

[[quoteright:350:[[UsefulNotes/WorldWarII https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/tellingafriend.png]]]]
[[caption-width-right:350:And that's why [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loose_lips_sink_ships loose lips might sink ships]].]]