Martyn Eaden is a British screenwriter and entertainment-industry professional best known publicly as the former husband of This Is Us actress Chrissy Metz. While much of the attention around him has focused on their marriage and divorce, Eaden has built an independent writing career that includes short films, screenplay competition wins and projects such as Shango, Olivia Mabel, Changes and Mercy.
Unlike many people connected to high-profile actors, Eaden has generally kept his private life out of the spotlight. Reliable information about his birth date, education, family and current relationships is limited, but his professional work is considerably better documented than many online biographies suggest.
Quick Facts
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Full name | Martyn Eaden |
| Nationality | British |
| Profession | Screenwriter, writer and entertainment-industry professional |
| Known for | Screenwriting career and former marriage to Chrissy Metz |
| Former spouse | Chrissy Metz |
| Marriage | January 5, 2008 |
| Separation | January 2013 |
| Divorce finalized | December 2015 |
| Children with Chrissy Metz | No publicly documented children |
| Notable works | Thoughtform, Spurned, Changes, Shango, Olivia Mabel, Dawn of the Woman, Mercy |
| Screenwriting background | Self-taught; began writing screenplays around 2010 |
Who Is Martyn Eaden?
Martyn Eaden is a British writer whose professional background extends beyond the label of “Chrissy Metz’s ex-husband.” He has worked across different parts of the entertainment business, including copywriting, public relations, television production-related roles, product integration and screenwriting.
Eaden has described himself as largely self-taught as a screenwriter. Rather than attending a formal screenwriting program, he studied established screenplay-writing methods, watched films closely and learned through practical experience.
His career has gradually moved toward genre storytelling, particularly horror, thriller and darkly comic material. Several of his scripts have since placed in or won recognized screenplay competitions.
What Does Martyn Eaden Do for a Living?
Screenwriting is the most clearly documented part of Eaden’s current professional identity, but it is not the only work he has done.
In a 2025 interview with Filmmatic, Eaden described a varied entertainment-industry background that included work with talent agencies and production offices, booking guests for cable television programs, PR copywriting and product integration.
He also said he had spent several years working on product integration for television, including programs associated with HGTV and Discovery. That experience appears to have influenced the commercial side of his approach to storytelling. Eaden has explained that his marketing background makes him think not only about a script itself but also about how a project could be positioned visually and promoted.
This broader experience helps explain why simply describing him as a journalist, as some older biographies do, is incomplete. He has been called a freelance writer and journalist in past entertainment coverage, but his later work is much more clearly connected to screenwriting and television-related marketing.
How Martyn Eaden Became a Screenwriter
Eaden has said that he enjoyed writing from childhood. He recalled that his parents would sometimes find him writing stories rather than playing with toys, suggesting that storytelling was an interest long before he entered the entertainment business.
His transition into screenwriting came much later.
According to Eaden, he wrote his first screenplay around 2010 after meeting screenwriter Mike Cooney at a party in Los Angeles. Their conversation introduced him more seriously to concepts such as three-act structure, character arcs and story beats.
Instead of pursuing formal training, Eaden taught himself. He has cited well-known screenwriting approaches associated with Robert McKee, Syd Field and Save the Cat, while also learning by watching movies, reading scripts and producing short-form work.
He has also spoken about his background in music writing. Eaden has said that he sees similarities between songwriting and screenwriting, particularly in rhythm, structure, theme and pacing.
His Early Film Credits
One of Eaden’s first documented screen projects was the 2016 short film Thoughtform. He is credited as both writer and director of the horror project.
That same year, he received a writing credit on Spurned, another short-form thriller and horror production directed by Merik Tadros.
These projects provided early practical experience, but Eaden’s later screenplay competition record gives a clearer picture of how his writing career developed.
Rather than building a traditional Hollywood résumé around a long list of produced studio films, he has established himself through independent projects, screenplay development and competition recognition.
Changes Became One of His Early Competition Successes
The screenplay Changes marked an important step in Eaden’s development as a writer.
The project appeared among Shore Scripts’ 2021 Short Film Fund selections and later advanced as a semifinalist in the 2022 Scriptation Showcase. In 2024, it was also named a finalist in the Golden Script Competition.
The repeated recognition is significant because it shows that Changes was not simply a single contest entry. The script continued to attract attention from different screenplay organizations over several years.
That pattern would become increasingly visible in Eaden’s later work.
Shango and His Collaboration With David McClellan
Eaden has also developed a long-running creative partnership with writer David McClellan.
The two had known each other for more than a decade by the time Filmmatic interviewed them in 2022 about their screenplay Shango. The project became one of their most notable collaborations when it won the overall prize in Season 6 of Filmmatic’s Horror Screenplay Awards.
For Eaden, the recognition helped establish a professional identity that was largely absent from the celebrity coverage surrounding his earlier marriage.
It also demonstrated his growing focus on genre material. Horror, supernatural stories and thrillers have appeared repeatedly across his later work.
Olivia Mabel Became a Major Development Project
Another collaboration with McClellan, Olivia Mabel, earned further industry attention.
The supernatural screenplay centers on a Texas teacher with psychic abilities who confronts a threatening force connected to her family and the land around her. It appeared in genre screenplay competitions and was named the Texas-category winner in the 2024 Dallas International Film Festival Screenwriting Competition.
By September 2025, Eaden said the screenplay had been optioned and was in development. He named Salt & Light Films and actress-producer Ruby Modine among those involved with the project and said Dakota Gorman was attached to direct.
That development should not be confused with a completed or released film. As of the latest reliably confirmed information, the strongest description is that Eaden said in 2025 that Olivia Mabel had been optioned and was moving through development.
Dawn of the Woman and Mercy
Eaden continued developing original screenplays after Olivia Mabel.
His feature screenplay Dawn of the Woman was conceived as a comedy-horror story involving a home invasion at a female empowerment retreat. The project reached the quarterfinals of ScreenCraft’s 2024 Horror Competition and later appeared among the quarterfinalists in the 2025 Outstanding Screenplays Feature Competition.
Another project, Mercy, brought Eaden one of his clearest individual competition achievements.
The script won Season 10 of Filmmatic’s Short Screenplay Awards in 2025. Eaden described the story as an urban-noir thriller centered on a man attacked by the mob and rescued by a troubled woman.
He has said that Mercy evolved from ideas contained in his first feature screenplay, effectively allowing him to return to earlier material with more experience as a writer. Following its competition success, he discussed the possibility of expanding the concept into a feature-length screenplay.
Martyn Eaden and Chrissy Metz Met Online
For many readers, Eaden remains most familiar because of his relationship with Chrissy Metz.
The two met through online dating in 2006, before Metz became widely known for This Is Us. At the time, she was living in Los Angeles while Eaden was based in Sheffield, England.
Their relationship therefore began long-distance.
Accounts based on Metz’s memoir describe the couple communicating remotely before meeting in person. Eaden eventually traveled to the United States, and the relationship progressed toward marriage.
This period came years before Metz’s breakthrough as Kate Pearson on NBC, meaning their marriage largely predated the level of fame she later achieved.
When Did Martyn Eaden and Chrissy Metz Get Married?
Eaden and Metz married on January 5, 2008, in Santa Barbara, California.
Their marriage lasted several years, but the relationship eventually deteriorated. They separated in January 2013, according to reporting based on divorce documents.
Eaden filed for divorce in November 2014, citing irreconcilable differences. The divorce was finalized in December 2015.
The sequence matters because some online biographies incorrectly compress the separation, filing and finalized divorce into a single date.
The more accurate timeline is straightforward: they married in 2008, separated in 2013, began formal divorce proceedings in 2014 and were legally divorced in 2015.
Why Did Chrissy Metz and Martyn Eaden Divorce?
There is no single publicly confirmed dramatic reason behind the end of their marriage.
Eaden’s divorce filing cited irreconcilable differences, the standard legal explanation reported from the case. Metz has spoken publicly about the marriage and its difficulties, particularly through her memoir, but she has not framed Eaden as a public villain or accused him of one definitive act that explains the divorce.
Her later comments have generally presented the marriage as a relationship that ultimately did not work.
That distinction is important because some celebrity websites have built more sensational narratives around their breakup. The available reliable evidence supports a simpler conclusion: the relationship broke down, the couple separated, and Eaden eventually filed for divorce.
Did Martyn Eaden and Chrissy Metz Have Children?
There are no publicly documented children from Martyn Eaden and Chrissy Metz’s marriage.
No reliable source establishes that they had a son or daughter together.
Eaden’s family life after the divorce has remained largely private, so claims about whether he has children from another relationship should not be made without credible supporting information.
Is Martyn Eaden Married Now?
There is no reliable public confirmation that Eaden has remarried.
Likewise, no credible recent source identifies a current wife, girlfriend or long-term partner.
Because he maintains a relatively private personal life, it would also be inaccurate to state definitively that he is single. The correct conclusion is simply that his present relationship status is not publicly confirmed.
How Old Is Martyn Eaden?
Eaden’s exact date of birth and age have not been reliably established in authoritative public sources.
Various biography websites publish supposed birth years, ages and even specific birth dates, but these claims generally lack attribution to an interview, official biography, public record or other dependable source.
The same caution applies to claims about his exact birthplace.
He is British and has publicly discussed coming from England. Sheffield is also documented as the city where he was living during the early stages of his relationship with Metz. That does not establish Sheffield as his place of birth.
A reliable biography should therefore avoid presenting a precise age or birthplace as fact.
What Is Martyn Eaden’s Net Worth?
There is no verified public figure for Martyn Eaden’s net worth.
Celebrity biography websites often attach estimated fortunes to people connected to actors and other public figures, but there are no reliable financial disclosures showing Eaden’s assets, screenplay income, salary, property holdings or investment portfolio.
His work provides identifiable income sources, including writing, entertainment-industry employment, marketing and product integration, but those activities do not provide enough information to calculate a credible personal fortune.
Any exact net-worth figure should therefore be treated as speculative.
Is Martyn Eaden Really a Journalist?
Eaden has frequently been described in older reports as a British journalist or freelance writer. Biography.com, for example, has referred to him as a freelance writer from Great Britain, while other entertainment reporting has described him as both a journalist and copywriter.
His own later account provides more specific information.
Eaden has spoken directly about PR copywriting, marketing, production work and television product integration, while his screenwriting record is independently documented through films and competitions.
For that reason, “screenwriter and entertainment-industry professional” is a more complete description of his career today than simply calling him a journalist.
A Common Error About Death Factory
One frequently repeated claim deserves particular caution.
A number of online biography pages identify Eaden as a writer of Death Factory. That attribution has circulated widely enough to become part of many short biographies about him.
Reliable current industry credit information does not clearly support presenting Death Factory as one of his confirmed screenwriting credits.
His documented writing work includes Thoughtform, Spurned and his later competition screenplays. Unless stronger production records establish a writing credit on Death Factory, it should not be included in a verified filmography.
This is a useful example of how repeated online claims can begin to look factual even when their original sourcing is unclear.
What Is Martyn Eaden Doing Now?
The latest substantial public information about Eaden concerns his writing rather than his private life.
By 2025, he remained active as a screenwriter while also discussing television product-integration work. His recent projects included Mercy, Dawn of the Woman and the optioned screenplay Olivia Mabel.
His Filmmatic interviews also show that he continues to think seriously about the practical realities of working as a screenwriter. He has spoken openly about the difficulty of sustaining a writing career and the importance of continuing to write even when individual projects do not move forward.
That professional record makes the familiar description of Eaden solely as “Chrissy Metz’s ex-husband” increasingly incomplete. His marriage explains why the wider public first encountered his name, but his screenwriting work now provides a clearer picture of his own career.
Conclusion
Martyn Eaden first attracted broad public attention through his marriage to Chrissy Metz, but his professional story extends well beyond that relationship. The British writer has developed a body of screenwriting work that includes competition-winning projects such as Shango and Mercy, alongside Changes, Olivia Mabel and Dawn of the Woman.
He has remained private about most aspects of his personal life, which is why details such as his exact age, current relationship and net worth should not be treated as established facts. The most reliable picture of Eaden today is that of a working screenwriter with a varied background across writing, television and entertainment marketing.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Martyn Eaden?
Martyn Eaden is a British screenwriter and entertainment-industry professional. He is also widely known as the former husband of actress Chrissy Metz.
When were Martyn Eaden and Chrissy Metz married?
They married on January 5, 2008. They separated in January 2013, Eaden filed for divorce in 2014, and the divorce was finalized in December 2015.
What movies and screenplays has Martyn Eaden worked on?
His documented work includes Thoughtform, Spurned, Changes, Shango, Olivia Mabel, Dawn of the Woman and Mercy. Several of those scripts have received recognition in screenplay competitions.
Does Martyn Eaden have children?
There are no publicly documented children from his marriage to Chrissy Metz. Reliable information about whether he has children from any later relationship is not publicly available.
What is Martyn Eaden doing today?
Recent professional information shows Eaden continuing to work in screenwriting and television-related product integration. In 2025, his screenplay Mercy won a Filmmatic competition, while Olivia Mabel had been optioned for development.
What is Martyn Eaden’s age?
His exact age and date of birth have not been reliably confirmed by authoritative public sources. Birth years circulated by secondary biography websites should therefore be treated with caution.

