Is The Death of Bunny Munro based on a true story?

The Death of Bunny Munro bursts onto screens today, with Matt Smith giving a mesmerising turn as the deeply troubled title character of the six-part miniseries.

The story picks up in the early noughties, when a personal tragedy causes travelling salesman Bunny Munro (Smith) to take his nine-year-old son, Bunny Jr (Rafael Mathé), on an impromptu road trip across the south coast of England.

This proves not to be a wholesome father-son holiday, however, with Bunny's reckless and neglectful tendencies quickly rearing their head as his impressionable young boy risks picking up the very same behaviours.

Clearly, there are themes in this plot relating to addiction, mental health issues and parenting that will hit close to home for some viewers, particularly with such powerful performances and a top script by Somewhere Boy's Pete Jackson.

Author, screenwriter and musician Nick Cave, who penned the book on which Sky's drama is based, has recently opened up on the extent to which The Death of Bunny Munro was inspired by experiences in his own life.

Is The Death of Bunny Munro based on a true story?

No, The Death of Bunny Munro is not based on a true story, but adapted from the fiction novel of the same name by Nick Cave. However, the writer has described certain aspects of the plot as "autobiographical".

Speaking at London Literature Festival, Cave said: "The thing about Bunny Munro, which I understand perfectly well, is being a human being that is not in particularly showroom condition."

"I had my dark side," continued the Bad Seeds frontman, reflecting on his life at the time of writing the novel, "and I was navigating a whole lot of stuff that was very complex and just deeply problematic.

"And having to look after a child at the same time, and learning the way a parent can try, at least, to keep that part of [themselves] away from the child – and keep the child buoyed up."

Cave added: "This was the fundamental driving force in the relationship between the father and son, which I understood clearly. So I feel, in that respect, it's very autobiographical. I don't have his particular predilections, but I do understand him."

One thing that Cave and his character do have in common is a history of drug use, with Bunny Munro frequently resorting to cocaine and alcohol as a dangerous method of coping with his rapidly disintegrating life.

In an interview with Spanish news outlet El País, Cave expressed his disgust for both of those substances – while acknowledging that he used to take cocaine "all the time" regardless – with the strongest vice of his life being heroin.

In a 1988 interview with NME (via The Guardian), he shared: "I really wish I hadn't become involved with [drugs] myself because I'm in a situation now where it will take quite a concentrated effort to live without them and it will require quite a major life's fight to stop taking them."

Many years later, in October 2020, he wrote on his own Red Hand Files that attending Narcotics Anonymous meetings had been a key step in tackling his addiction, telling a fan that he "probably wouldn't have survived" without the support group.

Still, despite some parallels in their life experiences and struggles, Cave has stopped well short of claiming that Bunny Munro is directly based on him; a point he has stuck to ever since the novel was first released in 2009.

Around the book launch, he told website FlavorWire: "I should say that neither Bunny nor the Horned Killer in the book was based on me. Sure, there are elements of Bunny's sexual monologue running through his head that I recognise, though it's an extreme case.

"The book is really an investigation. Bunny is a product of the society in which he lives — a sexually heightened consumer society of billboards, ads, MTV — and this is the stuff of his fantasies."

At this year's London Literature Festival, where Sky screened the first two episodes of its adaptation, Cave explained that Bunny Munro was born primarily from his natural interest in "flawed" and "transgressive" characters.

"I just think they're more interesting – certainly more interesting to write about," he told panel host Edith Bowman. "But they are the ones that we should watch. They're the ones that we should pay attention to.

"On some level, they are the truth tellers. I've always felt that way about these problematic characters. They're not the ones that we should push to the side and ignore or dispose of, but rather ones we should pay attention to."

Cave concluded: "There is some fundamental truth that operates, I think, in explicitly broken people."

The Death of Bunny Munro arrives on Sky Atlantic and NOW on Thursday 20th November 2025.

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