If you know the name Martyn Eaden, there’s a good chance you learned it because of someone else. His former wife, Chrissy Metz, became one of the most talked-about actresses on American television when This Is Us launched in 2016. And once people started asking who she was, they eventually started asking who he was.
What they found was someone genuinely private. A British writer working in copywriting, journalism, and screenwriting who had no interest in the spotlight even when it was briefly pointed directly at him.
This is the full story, told honestly.
Quick Facts Table
| Detail | Information |
|---|---|
| Full Name | Martyn Eaden |
| Birth Year | Around 1970 (specific date and place not confirmed; April 10, 1970 appears in one source) |
| Birthplace | United Kingdom (one source suggests Hampshire; not independently confirmed) |
| Nationality | British |
| Profession | Copywriter, journalist, screenwriter |
| Most Notable Film | The Butchers (also titled Death Factory, 2014, directed by Steven Judd) |
| Former Wife | Chrissy Metz, actress (This Is Us) |
| How They Met | Online dating app, 2006 |
| Wedding Date | January 5, 2008 |
| Wedding Location | Santa Barbara, California (courthouse ceremony) |
| Separation | January 2013 |
| Divorce Filed | November 2014 by Martyn |
| Divorce Finalized | December 11, 2015 |
| Reason for Divorce | Irreconcilable differences |
| Children | None |
| Social Media | No verified public accounts on any platform |
| Estimated Net Worth | Around $1 million |
| Current Status | Living privately in the UK; no public updates since divorce |
A British Writer Who Kept His Life Closed
There’s a particular kind of person who builds a whole life in the background of the internet. No Instagram. No Twitter. No curated personal brand. Just the work, and a real life that stays offline.
Martyn Eaden is that person. Even during the years when he was married to someone who would eventually become a Golden Globe-nominated television actress, he kept everything about himself firmly out of public view.
He was born somewhere in the United Kingdom, around 1970. The specific date and city haven’t been officially confirmed anywhere. One source specifies April 10, 1970, and mentions Hampshire as his home region, but this detail appears in only that single source and can’t be independently verified. His family background and childhood are entirely absent from the public record, which is exactly how he seems to want it.
From the UK to Copywriting and Journalism
Whatever his educational background, Martyn built a working career as a copywriter and journalist in the UK. Copywriting is the kind of work that lives in magazine pages, advertising campaigns, and branded content, work that reaches millions of people without anyone ever knowing the name of the person who wrote the words.
Journalism gave him a more public track record, at least in theory. But even here, Martyn’s footprint in the public record is minimal. He worked. He wrote. He kept his name below the waterline of public recognition.
The screenwriting came later, as he expanded his creative work into narrative fiction and genre storytelling.
The Butchers: His Most Known Professional Work
The clearest, most verifiable piece of Martyn Eaden’s professional work is a film called The Butchers, also released under the alternate title Death Factory in 2014. Directed by Steven Judd, the film centers on two brothers who unintentionally resurrect a group of serial killers, setting off a chain of chaotic events involving themselves and a bus full of passengers.
It’s a horror film with a direct-to-video sensibility, the kind of project where a writer gets real creative freedom in genre territory without the constraints of big studio production. The film gave Martyn a genuine screen credit and a place in the horror filmography of that era.
Some sources mention other writing credits, including scripts called Shango and Mercy described as award-winning. These appear in only one source and can’t be independently confirmed through a verifiable secondary reference. I’ve noted them here but can’t present them as definitively confirmed without better sourcing.
How He Met Chrissy Metz
In 2006, Martyn Eaden and Chrissy Metz connected through an online dating app. At the time, Chrissy was an American actress based in the United States who hadn’t yet had her major breakthrough. Martyn was a British writer living across the Atlantic.
The distance between them didn’t stop things from developing. Martyn began traveling regularly between the United Kingdom and the United States to spend time with her. Despite the cost and the long-distance challenge, he remained committed. Roughly a year after they first met, he asked her to marry him.
That kind of commitment during the early, uncertain phase of a relationship says something about how serious he was.
A Courthouse Wedding in Santa Barbara
Martyn Eaden and Chrissy Metz were married on January 5, 2008, during a courthouse ceremony in Santa Barbara, California. It was small. Close friends and family only. No red carpet, no celebrity photos, no public announcement.
Both of them were still building their careers at that point. Chrissy hadn’t landed the role that would make her famous. Martyn was working as a writer without broad public recognition. The wedding matched the life they were living: quiet, practical, real.
They didn’t have children during their marriage. They kept their life together largely private from the very beginning, which made it easy to stay that way when things started to change.
What Chrissy’s Memoir Revealed About the Marriage
In her memoir This Is Me, Chrissy Metz wrote honestly about her marriage to Martyn. She didn’t paint him as a villain. In fact, multiple sources report that she described him as a great guy. But the book did reveal some of the friction points that made the marriage difficult over time.
One of the most human details from the memoir was about their families. Martyn was quiet and reserved by nature. Chrissy’s family was loud and outgoing. Those two energies didn’t blend easily, and that clash put pressure on the relationship in ways that gradually wore things down.
As their relationship became more difficult, Chrissy said she was attending Overeaters Anonymous meetings nearly every day. Martyn, during that same difficult period, began hiking regularly with a female colleague. Chrissy said she didn’t like that. Whether the hiking itself was a problem or whether it was a symptom of a larger distance growing between them is hard to know from the outside, but it was clearly a point of tension she carried.
Why They Didn’t Work Out
Relationships end for a hundred different reasons, and most of those reasons look small from the outside even when they feel enormous from inside the marriage.
For Martyn and Chrissy, the official version is simple: irreconcilable differences. That’s the legal language that covers everything from fundamental incompatibility to specific incidents nobody wants to describe in court documents.
The practical timeline tells part of the story. They got married in January 2008. By January 2013, they had separated, five years into the marriage. The separation didn’t immediately become a divorce. Martyn filed the formal paperwork in November 2014, more than a year after they stopped living as a couple. The divorce was finalized on December 11, 2015, which means the legal process alone took over two years from separation to closure.
Notably, it was Martyn who filed. That detail tends to get overlooked in coverage of the story, which mostly focuses on Chrissy’s perspective. He was the one who formally initiated the end.
After the Divorce: Almost Complete Disappearance
After the divorce was finalized in 2015, Martyn Eaden returned to his private life with an efficiency that’s actually impressive in the social media age.
No verified social media accounts appeared. No interviews. No tell-all quotes to tabloids. No public commentary about the marriage or the divorce. He simply became invisible again, which wasn’t difficult for someone who had never really been visible in the first place.
Chrissy’s subsequent fame, her Emmy and Golden Globe nominations for This Is Us, brought his name back into search results periodically, but nothing he did added any new information to those results. The same basic biographical details recycled across websites without any new material to update them.
Where he is now, what he’s writing, whether he’s in a new relationship, none of these things are part of the public record.
Chrissy Metz After the Divorce
The post-divorce chapters of this story belong more to Chrissy than to Martyn, simply because she’s the one who remained in public life. She dated cameraman Josh Stancil after their divorce, then that relationship ended in early 2018. She later became romantically linked to songwriter Hal Rosenfeld, with whom she released a song called Talking to God. Reports of an engagement to Rosenfeld surfaced, though neither confirmed all the details publicly.
Meanwhile, Martyn’s name only came up in coverage of Chrissy’s life and relationships when journalists were filling in biographical background.
What Little We Know About His Current Life
He is most likely still living in the United Kingdom, likely continues to write in some form, and has consistently chosen to stay out of the public spotlight.
He has no confirmed social media presence. He hasn’t given interviews. He hasn’t been photographed at public events. The only confirmed significant professional credit since the marriage ended remains The Butchers from 2014, and even that predates the divorce finalization.
If he’s still working as a screenwriter or journalist, he’s doing it the same way he always did: quietly, without announcing it, letting the work speak for itself if it speaks at all.
What His Net Worth Actually Tells Us
Estimates of Martyn Eaden’s net worth generally land around $1 million across multiple sources, none of which is based on any confirmed financial disclosure. For context, Chrissy Metz’s net worth by the mid-2020s has been estimated in the range of $7 million or more.
The $1 million figure for Martyn likely reflects a career in professional writing including copywriting, journalism, and the occasional screenwriting credit, spread across roughly two decades of work. It’s a reasonable income for a working British writer, not a fortune, but enough to sustain a private life without financial pressure making the news.
Why This Story Matters Beyond the Famous Connection
Martyn Eaden’s story is interesting precisely because of how little of it is available. In an era when almost everyone connected to someone famous eventually finds a way to monetize that connection, whether through book deals, podcast appearances, social media followings, or reality television, Martyn has done none of that.
He was briefly married to someone who became famous. He was the quieter one in a marriage of two people trying to build careers. The marriage ended. He walked away from the story and declined to stay in it.
There’s something genuinely rare about that. Most people, given the opportunity to have their name attached to a person with Golden Globe nominations and a major NBC drama, would take at least a small amount of what’s available. Martyn hasn’t.
A Note on Source Quality for This Topic
It’s worth being honest with you about what’s known versus what’s assumed in Martyn’s biography. His birth date is uncertain (approximately 1970 is the most consistent estimate, but no primary source confirms the exact date). His specific hometown in the UK is mentioned by only one source, which makes it unreliable as a confirmed fact. His education has never been publicly documented.
A number of websites present detailed descriptions about him with certainty, despite those claims not being supported by any independent secondary sources. I’ve noted those cases clearly in this article rather than presenting unverified details as facts. What’s confirmed: he’s British, born around 1970, worked as a copywriter and journalist, has one confirmed screenwriting credit in The Butchers (2014), met Chrissy Metz online in 2006, married her in Santa Barbara in January 2008, and their divorce was finalized in December 2015.
Everything else requires some honest uncertainty.
Read Next: Steven Cauble
Final Words
Martyn Eaden came into public consciousness through a relationship and departed from it without a word. He built a career as a writer across several formats, contributed to at least one produced horror film, married an actress who later became far more famous than either of them could have known, and then quietly stepped back into the life he’d always preferred: private, focused, and entirely his own.
He’s not a cautionary tale. He’s not a scandal. He’s just a person who chose privacy over opportunity, every time it was offered, and lived accordingly. In the age of personal branding and constant self-promotion, that’s its own kind of statement.
FAQ Section
1. Who is Martyn Eaden?
He’s a British copywriter, journalist, and screenwriter, best known publicly as the former husband of actress Chrissy Metz from This Is Us.
2. When was Martyn Eaden born?
Around 1970, based on the most consistently cited information. The specific date and birthplace have not been officially confirmed, though some sources suggest April 10, 1970.
3. Where is Martyn Eaden from?
He’s from the United Kingdom. One source suggests Hampshire, but this hasn’t been independently confirmed.
4. What is Martyn Eaden’s most well-known professional work?
His most confirmed professional credit is The Butchers (2014), also released as Death Factory, a horror film directed by Steven Judd.
5. How did Martyn Eaden and Chrissy Metz first meet?
They met through an online dating app in 2006. Martyn was living in the UK at the time and began flying to the United States to visit her.
6. When did Martyn Eaden and Chrissy Metz get married?
On January 5, 2008, the couple exchanged vows during a small courthouse ceremony in Santa Barbara, California.
7. When did they divorce?
They separated in January 2013. Martyn filed for divorce in November 2014, and the divorce was finalized on December 11, 2015.
8. Who filed for divorce?
Martyn Eaden filed for divorce, listing irreconcilable differences as the reason for ending the marriage.
9. Did Martyn Eaden and Chrissy Metz have children?
No. They did not have children during their marriage.
10. What did Chrissy Metz say about Martyn in her memoir?
In her memoir This Is Me, she reportedly described him as a great guy while also writing about the tensions in their marriage, including differences in personality between Martyn’s reserved nature and her family’s loud, outgoing character.
11. Does Martyn Eaden have social media?
No verified social media accounts have been found for him on any platform.
12. Where is Martyn Eaden now?
He is believed to be living in the United Kingdom, but no confirmed public information about his current life has emerged since the 2015 divorce.
13. What is Martyn Eaden’s estimated net worth today?
Around $1 million, based on his career as a copywriter, journalist, and screenwriter. No official financial disclosure exists to confirm this figure.
14. Is Martyn Eaden in a new relationship?
No confirmed information about any current romantic relationship is available in the public record.
15. Has Martyn Eaden spoken publicly about his divorce from Chrissy Metz?
No. He has given no public interviews or statements about the marriage, the divorce, or his life after it.
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