Johnny Depp has a STRANGE connection to 'Stranger Things' Season 4's Eddie Munson
Johnny Depp appears to have a strange connection to one eccentric character on 'Stranger Things'. Season 4 of the Netflix hit series introduced the character Eddie Munson, the ring leader of a club called Hellfire. While Munson's unique persona made him an overnight sensation among fans of the show, it has now emerged that the character was inspired by a real person and everything that conspired against him was based on real-life events.
Depp, 59, who recently won a defamation case against ex-wife Amber Heard, had once helped writer Damien Nichols claim his innocence in a triple homicide case in which he was initially sentenced to death along with two others.
RELATED ARTICLES
Bizarre comparison between Marilyn Manson's case and Johnny Depp's warns of 'dangerous precedent'
Did Amber Heard ask Johnny Depp to reduce $10M settlement? Reports claim she met him privately
According to Mashable, Echols was arrested in 1993 along with Jessie Misskelley Jr and Jason Baldwin -- the trio was dubbed The West Memphis Three -- for the murder of three eight-year-old boys in West Memphis. The case was covered in the 'Paradise Lost' documentary and its sequels 'Paradise Lost 2: Revelations' and 'Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory'.
The documentaries covered the trial, conviction, as well as the role played by the Satanic Panic movement of the 1980s throughout the ordeal. The movement was driven by the fear that regular folk were being lured into devil-worshipping cults.
The trio was convicted in 1994. Echols was sentenced to death, Misskelley Jr to life imprisonment plus two 20-year sentences, and Baldwin to life imprisonment. They went on to spend the next 18 years of their lives behind bars until their ruling was finally overturned in 2010 with the help of the latest DNA technology that proved their innocence.
The said documentaries are said to have drawn the interest of Hollywood stars including Depp, Margaret Cho, and some others who believed the teenagers were wrongly accused. Echols, now 47, told E! News in an interview about the celebrities financially supporting them to carry out DNA testing in their case. ''Johnny has been with us every single step of the way since I got out. We did the book signing the other night in New York, and he was there for that, you know? Obviously, this isn't helping his career in any way. This is something he is doing entirely to help me. We've grown to love him dearly. He's become like a brother to me," Echols said of the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' star.
That said, even the official Twitter handle of Netflix Geeked confirmed that Eddie Munson was inspired by the writer Echols. "STRANGER THINGS 4's Hellfire Club storyline -- and especially the character Eddie Munson -- were inspired by the documentary series PARADISE LOST. Eddie is loosely modeled after writer and artist Damien Echols, who was a member of the West Memphis Three," Netflix Geeked tweeted on May 28.
STRANGER THINGS 4's Hellfire Club storyline -- and especially the character Eddie Munson -- were inspired by the documentary series PARADISE LOST.
— Netflix Geeked (@NetflixGeeked) May 28, 2022
Eddie is loosely modeled after writer and artist Damien Echols, who was a member of the West Memphis Three. pic.twitter.com/nyUnvZ5B8x
This comes after Depp's sensational victory in court against Heard last month. On June 1, a Virginia-based jury ruled overwhelmingly in Depp's favor and awarded him more than $10 million in damages after deciding that Heard defamed him in a 2018 Washington Post op-ed about becoming a "public figure representing domestic abuse." While she did not mention Depp in the essay, his lawyers argued that the implications were obvious and damaged their client's career. The seven-member jury also awarded Heard $2 million in compensatory damages on one of her three defamation counterclaims.