Using characters while writing isn't anything unusual either. It's quite common actually. Even the best novelists will put themselves in the shoes of their characters in the story as they write. Stephen King has killed a lot of people in his work. Nobody thinks he's a murderer in real life. Plenty of musicians have had to explain their stage presence and performance in the past. These days it seems some of those folks actually believe their own publicity and turn into their public personas and it doesn't help that in most cases the general public doesn't realize that's a character they play as well.