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Sadly, the real-life inspiration for Entourage's beloved bong-enthusiast and hanger-on Turtle has died from an asthma attack over the weekend:

[Donnie] Carroll, 39, who was known as
Donkey,
collapsed in his fiancee
s arms Sunday night. He was rushed to the hospital but died in the emergency room. [...]



[T]urtle, the groupie-groping goofball played by Jerry Ferrara, is based on Donkey, who carried Wahlberg
s bags for more than 14 years whilst trying to launch a career as a rap musician under the name Murda One.

Donkey and Wahlberg had a falling out earlier this year because Carroll claimed Wahlberg never paid him for appropriating his life story for
Entourage.
He said all the other real-life characters had been
taken care of
but that he
d been cut out.

It's a tragic ending to what was already a sad story of dashed hip-hop dreams. But unlike the major plot upheavals following the loss of a show's lead, don't expect the event to have much of an effect on Entourage itself beyond perhaps a memorial card in the closing credits of next season's opener. After all, he's just the broke childhood friend whose life was co-opted for a premium cable hit, not one of the series' actual stars.