What Really Happened?
Brittany Murphy, star of fan favorites like 8 Mile and Uptown Girls, died suddenly in December of 2009 at the age of 32. In the wake of her untimely demise, fans, friends, and even Murphy's own family were left wondering what had happened to the actress. And as more details emerged, the tragedy—and mystery—deepened.
It All Started With Clueless
From the moment that Brittany Murphy first appeared on screen in 1995’s Clueless, with her grungy plaids, dyed red hair, and thick New York accent, it was clear that she was destined to be a star. So, where did it all go wrong?
Hope For The Future
As the year 2009 came to a close, Brittany Murphy showed plenty of hope for the future. She’d been with her husband, Simon Monjack, since 2006 and the pair had tied the knot in May of 2007. She lived in a mansion, previously inhabited by Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake, with Monjack and her mother, Sharon.
In an interview conducted in early December 2009, she said she hoped that she’d be having a baby within the next year. Unfortunately, she’d never even live to see the end of the month.
Luisa Pisani, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons
A Call For Help
In the morning hours of December 20, 2009, Brittany Murphy collapsed on the floor of the bathroom in her Los Angeles home. The LA Fire Department responded to the call and tried to resuscitate her. Ultimately, they decided to take her to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center for further treatment. Sadly, it wasn’t enough.
A Sudden Loss
Brittany Murphy went into cardiac arrest during her treatment at Cedars-Sinai and died at 10:04 AM, just over two hours after the LA Fire Department had first arrived at her home. Suddenly, the whirlwind of action meant to save her was over, and the room was silent. She was just 32 years old. And no one knew why she was gone.
The Autopsy
The day after Brittany Murphy’s untimely death, the Los Angeles County coroner’s office performed an autopsy, hoping to pinpoint the cause of her death. But, as these things go, the results took months to come out. And in the meantime, her friends and family had to deal with the aftermath of it all.
The Funeral
Brittany Murphy’s funeral took place four days after her death, on Christmas Eve, 2009. Though she had many friends and scores of fans who wished to bid her farewell, her family opted to keep the event small and private. It took place in the Church of the Hills at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in the Hollywood Hills. “Amazing Grace” played as they put her to rest.
Though it was a somber, private affair, that didn’t mean that those closest to her stayed silent.
They Had Their Own Ideas
As the world waited for the results of Brittany Murphy’s autopsy, the rumor mill went into overdrive, as people speculated about what could have caused her death. Though the authorities had found a variety of prescription medication at her home, Murphy’s widower Simon Monjack told the press, "My wife did not take anything on the morning of her death that would have caused her to be sick or ill, let alone die”.
They Kept Talking To The Press
Monjack also called claims that Murphy was underweight and had an eating disorder false. In January of 2010, Monjack and Murphy’s mother Sharon expanded on their previous statements, claiming that a mitral valve prolapse—a type of heart disease and degeneration of one of the heart’s valves—had been the cause.
The autopsy had yet to come out, so how they claimed to have known this was dubitable. And that wasn’t the only weird part about it all.
Their Relationship Was Questionable
After the sudden loss of Murphy, people extended sympathy and understanding to Sharon Murphy and Simon Monjack—but the more those two speculated on what had happened, the more their welcome wore thin. They continued to live together in the mansion where Brittany had died, and Simon even once claimed on TV that an autopsy for his wife was unnecessary.
It’s no wonder he thought so—the results went against everything he’d been saying.
The Autopsy Results
Finally, in February of 2010, the results of Brittany Murphy’s autopsy were released. They found her death accidental, and that it had been caused by pneumonia, which had been exacerbated by severe anemia and “multiple drug intoxication”—but what exactly did that mean?
The Coroner’s Findings
When the coroner claimed a secondary cause was “multiple drug intoxication,” they meant that they had found a variety of substances, both prescription and illicit, in Murphy’s system, all in elevated quantities. These included hydrocodone, acetaminophen, L-methamphetamine, and chlorpheniramine.
Finally, the world had answers—but then the tragedy, and the mystery, suddenly deepened.
A Shocking Twist
On May 23, 2010, just five months and a few days after Brittany Murphy’s death, her mother Sharon found Simon Monjack unresponsive in the master bedroom of the home they shared. She called 9-1-1, and though paramedics attempted to revive him, they pronounced him dead at 9:45 PM. He was 40.
The coincidence was more than just eerie—it was downright suspicious. And it was about to get worse.
Simon’s Autopsy
The Los Angeles County coroner’s office also performed an autopsy on Simon Monjack’s body. The results were shocking. The causes were found to be acute pneumonia and severe anemia—almost identical to the results of Murphy’s autopsy. Now, the rumor mill really started to work overtime.
Too Strange To Be True
How could a case of pneumonia take down two people in their prime just months apart? The sleuths of the internet began their march toward what they hoped was the truth, and speculated that perhaps, the home had a toxic mold problem that had caused Murphy and Monjack’s illness.
It made sense—so much sense that it quickly got out of control.
Separating The Truth From Fiction
The story gained so much traction that people began to report it as the truth—and there was a kernel of truth to it all. After Murphy’s death, Monjack, Sharon Murphy, and their lawyer had all brought it up as a possibility to the coroner. But then, when it all came up again after Monjack’s death, Sharon Murphy had a bizarre reaction.
He Said, She Said
Though Assistant Chief Coroner Ed Winter said the trio had approached him about mold, Sharon Murphy claimed that had never happened, and that no one had ever inspected the home for mold. For his part, Winter said that there was no evidence that mold was a factor.
Sharon Murphy then claimed the home had been inspected for mold and cleared two months before Brittany’s death. But then, her behavior around the subject got even weirder.
MARK RALSTON/AFP via Getty Images
She Changed Her Tune
Even after months of denying the home had mold in it, Sharon Murphy eventually changed her mind on the subject and in December 2011, began to claim that toxic mold had indeed been the main cause of the deaths of her daughter and son-in-law. This all came out in a lawsuit—and that's when things got really complicated.
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She Took It To Court
Sharon Murphy filed a lawsuit against the lawyers who’d represented her in an earlier case against the home’s builders. She claims that her lawyers hadn’t done their duty by not informing her that she could sue the builders for mold. By settling that original lawsuit, she’d given up the right to sue them for her daughter’s wrongful death.
And then, Brittany’s father got involved.
Dolores M. Harvey, Shutterstock
He Had His Own Theories
Brittany’s father Angelo Bertolotti missed much of her childhood. He spent 12 years behind bars for possession, and had ties to the mob in New Jersey. But in January of 2012, he came forward, asking the courts for access to samples of his daughter’s hair so that he could have them independently tested.
It was yet another plot twist in an already labyrinthine story.
What Did He Believe?
Bertolotti believed that his daughter had been poisoned, and it appeared as though he was hinting that her mother had been responsible—but this was no crusader fighting for justice. Bertolotti couldn’t even be bothered to show up for court, and his suit was dismissed.
This didn’t stop him from claiming he’d obtained a sample and had it tested himself, and that it showed elevated levels of heavy metals.
The Truth Was Much Simpler
Confronted with Bertolotti’s claims, the coroner admitted that Murphy had elevated levels of lead in her hair, but that was likely due to hair products, and that there was no lead or mold spores in her body during the time of her autopsy.
The Final Word—Or Was It
The day after Bertolotti made his claims about having his daughter’s hair tested, Sharon Murphy wrote an open letter to The Hollywood Reporter, refuting everything her ex had said about the case.
It marked the final time she spoke about her daughter and son-in-law in public—but more recently, a scathing documentary has claimed to uncover the real truth about Brittany Murphy’s untimely death and final days.
What Happened, Brittany Murphy?
The documentarians behind the HBO Max special What Happened, Brittany Murphy? sifted through the evidence around Brittany Murphy’s untimely death and ultimately came up with a set of shocking conclusions outlining the factors that had contributed to it all.
She Was In Poor Health
The late 90s and early 2000s were not an easy time to be a young actress. Casting directors demanded perfection, the standards for women’s bodies were at their most stringent, and gossip bloggers were learning that the meaner they were, the more views they got.
At the center of the storm was Brittany Murphy—who struggled both physically and mentally.
Brittany Murphy’s Health
It began in the early 2000s, when new tabloid photos of the actress showed that she’d lost a ton of weight—sparking whispers about the possibility of anorexia, bulimia, or addiction. Though she denied the rumors, one thing was undeniable: The pressures of Hollywood had gotten to her. And the effects were disastrous.
An Offhand Remark
When Murphy first appeared on the scene in Hollywood, industry higher-ups saw the baby fat in her face and wrote her off because of it. Murphy herself recalled someone “important” saying she was “huggable,” not hot.
Her dramatic weight loss left her weak and emaciated, with one director she’d worked with saying, "I've been around thousands of actors and I've never seen anyone that thin”.
A Deadly Combination
The pressures of Hollywood left Brittany Murphy in an incredibly vulnerable, insecure position. It’s possible that, with time and with help, she could’ve recovered from this. But at the moment when she was most susceptible—exposed like an open wound—someone came in and, for all intents and purposes, destroyed what was left of her.
His name was Simon Monjack.
Her Past Was Checkered
Brittany Murphy was just 18 when she got her breakout role in Hollywood, in 1995’s Clueless. From that point on, the tabloids obsessively chronicled her love life, reporting on her relationships with fellow stars like Ashton Kutcher and speculating on rumored connections with Eminem and Fred Durst.
She Wanted To Be Loved
Murphy’s relationships were marked by a series of failed engagements, including ones to Kutcher and talent manager Jeff Kwatinetz. Then, finally, she met Simon Monjack, a British filmmaker who was hoping to make a movie called The White Hotel, which Murphy would star in.
Though the film was never made, Monjack and Murphy were inseparable from that very early meeting—but there were things about Monjack that Murphy didn’t know.
He Had A Dark Past
When it came to Simon Monjack, Brittany Murphy saw an affluent, classy, cultured man—but other people saw a sleazy scam artist. Monjack had no trouble painting himself as wealthy and spinning stories about his past and his many movie projects.
The truth was, he’d spent all of his family’s money, and one of the only film credits he had came from a nuisance lawsuit that had been settled just to shut him up.
He Had Angry Exes
Monjack had a past of phony investments, unpaid rent, and bad checks. But he wasn’t just scamming people for money. He also left behind a trail of jilted exes, including one who had a child with him—one that Murphy never knew about. Despite the many red flags, Murphy fell for it all, hook, line, and sinker.
He Wouldn’t Leave Her Alone
From very early on in their relationship, Murphy and Monjack were rarely apart. They spent every night together until his visa status became a problem, and wed soon afterward so they wouldn’t have to deal with that type of problem again. Murphy was so genuine, vulnerable, and open to love that Monjack essentially had an easy mark, on his hands, and he knew it.
He Was Controlling
Monjack presented himself to Murphy as the person who could fix her life and her flagging career—but his methods were questionable. He screened her phone calls, even cutting off her phone lines, and therefore separating her from friends. He took on the roles of agent, manager, and even hairstylist to prevent others from having access to her.
It was pretty classic abusive behavior—and the way he couched it was disturbing.
He Was Paranoid
Monjack claimed that people and paparazzi were out to “get” Murphy, and that he was just trying to protect her. He had a history of paranoid behavior as well. Monjack had once claimed he’d had cancer—a lie. Though many people called it as such, Monjack’s mother claimed he’d been paranoid about cancer his whole life, ever since his father had died from it at a young age.
Though he’d done his best to keep them away from her, Murphy’s friends found all of this more than a little disturbing.
They Held An Intervention
To everyone except Brittany Murphy and her mother, the writing on the wall was clear: Simon Monjack was a sleaze, a con man, and potentially very abusive. Her friends and family decided to step in, staging an intervention. Sadly, it failed—and worse, it showed Monjack that he was on the ropes and that people were on to him.
The consequences were brutal.
Something Wicked, Merchant Films
He Isolated Her
Murphy and Monjack’s relationship had survived the attempted intervention—and as a result, Monjack isolated Murphy even further from friends and family. They stopped really appearing in public, and got married in a private ceremony.
Though he spoke with her mother daily, he wouldn’t allow her near Murphy, lest she reveal the truth about him.
The End Of Her Career
Murphy hoped to make a career comeback with Monjack’s help, but he tended to make the worst decisions possible for her, inserting himself in situations where he wasn’t welcome. Additionally, Murphy used her money to settle Monjack’s lawsuits. Finally, on the set of The Caller, it all came to a head.
He Ruined It
Murphy was supposed to star in The Caller, but after Monjack showed up to set inebriated, she was fired from the movie. Defeated, Murphy went back to the home she shared with Monjack and her mother—a toxic situation that was about to get worse.
ANDREAS BRANCH/Patrick McMullan via Getty Images
Like A Gothic Horror
Prior to their deaths, both Murphy and Monjack were known for exaggerating—and in Monjack’s case, lying about—their health problems. So when Murphy first collapsed on the morning of December 20, claiming she couldn’t catch her breath, her mother thought she was being dramatic. It was a fatal mistake.
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The Real Truth About Brittany Murphy’s Death
As the coroner said in What Happened, Brittany Murphy?, he believes that if Sharon or Monjack had brought Brittany to the hospital to have her pneumonia treated in the days before her death, she likely would’ve survived. But this is just one thread in an extremely tangled web.
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The Blame Game
The documentary What Happened, Brittany Murphy? seems to conclude that the largest factor in the actress’s death is the toxic and abusive presence of Simon Monjack, who took advantage of Murphy at her most vulnerable. Without Monjack, she never would’ve lost so much weight, been under so much stress, or been so ill.
And she wasn’t the only one that he scammed.
The Truth Hurts
Sharon Murphy stood by Simon Monjack’s side after her daughter’s death—but she was scammed by him too. Left destitute and alone after losing them both, she attempted to sell diamond jewelry Monjack had given her, only to discover it was fake.
In the years he was married to Murphy, he’d spent $3 million of the actress’s money, while lying and falsifying documents to say he was investing it.
The Conclusion
What Happened, Brittany Murphy? debunks the claims of mold and poison that tainted the star’s story for so many years following her death, instead pointing a finger at the man responsible for her undoing, Simon Monjack.
As his ex-fiancée put it, Monjack "was a disturbed individual who was used to conning people…and Brittany was one of his latest victims."
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