The Name Walter White In ‘Breaking Bad’ Is Based Off A Real Person?

Fact: The character of Walter White actually isn’t based off a real person.

Although there is a real Walter White that hails from Montana, the ‘Breaking Bad’ television persona is not based off of him. While not a heading normally chosen for a post, many fans of the series believe that the show is loosely based off of the Montanan. It’s only a matter of coincidence that the name Walter White is used in the series Breaking Bad (And a result of a cookie cutter name).

What makes this fact kind of hard to believe is the fact that the real Walter White is too a drug dealer… A meth dealer at that. In 2013, the real Walter Jack White was sentenced to 12 years in prison for methamphetamine trafficking and firearms charges, the Billings Gazette reports. As you’ve likely watched the show you probably don’t need to ask if drug possession is a felony, but the sheer amount of the illegal substance that was seized makes the point drive even harder home. During the post shootout raid of his complex, they found 32 pounds of methamphetamine associated with White, who was trying to distribute it in the Bakken Oil Field. Additionally, White has a son. It lines up pretty well overall, though the problem is his name is not Walter Jr., rather Brandon.

The other name, Heisenberg comes from one of the most important physicists of the 20th century when Werner Heisenberg got a Nobel Prize for his theory on quantum mechanics.