How The Wire stars’ lives turned out to be JUST as dramatic as the series

Widely considered one of the greatest TV series ever, HBO’s The Wire is currently celebrating its 20th anniversary this month.

Over five seasons, the classic crime drama explored the wide-ranging impact of the war on drugs on the crack-infested streets of Baltimore, Maryland.

Written by David Simon, a former police reporter for The Baltimore Sun, the show was praised for its gritty realism and much of it was filmed on location around some of the roughest parts of the city.

Though it never won an Emmy, The Wire has been referred to across the critical board as the greatest television series of all time, only recently rivaled by AMC’s Breaking Bad.

Each season introduced a different facet of the city of Baltimore. In chronological order they were: the illegal drug trade, the seaport…