When Nicollete Sheridan's character, Edie, was killed off Desperate Housewives, everyone had very interesting theories why this happened. Now it appears to have been a classic case of real-life revenge manifested in a fictional kill off.

Sheridan is suing creator Marc Cherry for assaulting her, then killing off her character after she complained. According to TMZ, the lawsuit claims that on September 24, 2008, Sheridan confronted Cherry about the script and "Cherry took her aside and forcefully hit her with his hand across her face and head.

Cherry later tried to "beg forgiveness," but Sheridan reported him to ABC and he decided to retaliate via electrocuting Sheridan's character. People writes:

"The decision to kill off Sheridan's character demonstrates that Cherry and ABC intended to and did retaliate against Sheridan for her complaints about Cherry," the lawsuit says. The lawsuit notes that although some of the male characters were killed off the show, "none of the female characters had ever before been killed off or written out of the show."

Compare this to Sheridan and Cherry's explanations in April. Sheridan told ABC News:

"Somebody up there really wanted her dead. I think whoever Edie represented in ["Housewives" creator] Marc's life was somebody he didn't like. And he had a very difficult time distinguishing between fact and fiction."

And Marc Cherry said: "Edie's already slept with most of the guys on the street and has caused about as many problems as she could."

They were actually talking about Nicole Sheridan in real life! It was popular 16th century prime-time drama creator William Shakespeare who once wrote, "All the world's a stage." Now we can only assume that the majority character killings are indicative of real-life violence behind them. What did Ned Flanders ever do to Matt Groening?