Chris Martin buys Forest Whitaker's Star Wars helmet for charity

© Bang Showbiz Chris Martin

Chris Martin has bought a ‘Star Wars’ stormtrooper helmet belonging to Forest Whitaker to raise money for charity.

Forest wore the iconic helmet when he played rebel leader Saw Gerrera in the 2016 sci-fi movie ‘Rogue One: A Star Wars Story’, and had kept hold of the prop after filming concluded as a memento.

And this week, Coldplay frontman Chris purchased the exclusive memorabilia from Forest with the intention of auctioning it off to raise money for a good cause.

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Chris has donated the helmet – which has been signed by Forest, his ‘Star Wars’ co-stars, Chris, and his bandmates Guy Berryman, Will Champion and Jonny Buckland – to his friend Emmanuel Kelly, a refugee and musician from Iraq who was left with severely underdeveloped limbs after he fell victim to chemical warfare.

And Emmanuel is set to auction the prop at the This Is Icon fashion week event at the Landmark Hotel in London next week for the charity Wellchild, which provides care for seriously ill children and young people.

A source told The Sun newspaper’s Bizarre column: “Chris left everyone speechless when he handed over the helmet to Emmanuel to auction off. It’s a priceless piece of memorabilia from ‘Star Wars’.

“The organisers are expecting the bidding to go mad. Hopefully it will go for a lot of cash.”

The news comes after Chris, 44, previously revealed his love of the ‘Star Wars’ franchise when he said Coldplay’s upcoming album, ‘Music of the Spheres’ – which is due to be released on October 15 – was inspired by the hugely popular movie series.

He said: “One time I was watching ‘Star Wars’ and they had the scene with the Cantina band right? And I was like: ‘I wonder what musicians are like across the universe?’ and that led to this whole thing and now here we are.”