Did last year’s box office hit Straight Outta Compton inadvertently kill former N.W.A. manager Jerry Heller? No one can know for certain, but Heller’s lawyer, Mickey Shapiro, seems to think so.

The movie that chronicled the rise and eventual fall of the rap supergroup N.W.A. did no favors to Heller’s public image. Compton portrayed Heller as a conniving businessman who cozied up to the rappers of N.W.A., while skimming more than his fair share of the profits off the top. Heller himself was not pleased and filed a $110 million lawsuit stemming from his portrayal in the film.

Heller, 75, died on Friday after suffering what is believed to be a heart attack before getting into a car accident.

Shapiro told TMZ he believes the negative light the film painted Heller in is what ultimately contributed to his decline in health and death.

Mickey Shapiro tells TMZ ever since the movie came out painting Jerry as nothing but a crook, the former N.W.A. manager has been under a tremendous amount of stress. In fact — Shapiro says things were so bad — Jerry barely slept and was “heart broken” over the entire thing.

[Shapiro] says he believes the heart attack was brought on by the stress from the film and tells us, “Jerry Heller would be alive today if not for that movie.”

Heller himself told Rolling Stone that he watched the movie and found much of it to be “inaccurate” and “just out-and-out not true.”

[TMZ/Photo: Getty Images]

About Ben Sieck

Ben is a recent graduate of Butler University where he served as Managing Editor and Co-Editor-in-Chief for the Butler Collegian. He currently resides in Indianapolis.