Brittany Murphy's Husband Says Warner Brothers "Killed Her"
Jan. 28 2010, Published 10:30 a.m. ET
Simon Monjack, the husband of the late Brittany Murphy is lashing out at Hollywood, in particular Warner Brothers, claiming the top studio "killed her".
Monjack is so certain in his claim that in an exclusive interview with The Daily Beast he said he is actually planning on filing a wrongful death lawsuit against Warner Brothers, within the next few days. Monjack says they caused Murphy, who died last December, to have a heart attack from stress after they canceled a contract with the 32-year-old actress, just two weeks before she died.
Murphy was set to have begun production on the sequel to the animated hit movie Happy Feet, but when she was fired, Monjack says, "She was devastated".
Just one month before being fired by Warner Brothers Murphy had been let go from another major movie, The Caller, which had been filming in Puerto Rico. Rumors swirled that it was because Monjack, who was in charge of Brittany's hair and make-up, had been so difficult on the set, sometimes showing up drunk, that execs had no choice but to let Murphy go, something that Monjack adamantly denies.
“Every story needs a villain, and everyone has decided it is me,” Monjack says. “The reports about the Puerto Rican set are fantasy. I was never, ever drunk there. What I did do was demand they follow union rules and after she had worked 12 hour days, six days a week, that she get the breaks she was entitled to. I was "difficult’ because I was the enforcer to protect Brittany. She was far too nice to stand up to directors and producers who wanted her to work to exhaustion.”
Monjack also bristles at the stories that he was a gold digger and that he lived off of Brittany. “When Brittany died she had 60 pieces of unworn Louis Vuitton," he claims. "The dog had Louis Vuitton. This was all me. We kept our money separate. When I took Brittany out shopping, I paid for everything.”
Another thing Monjack is adamant about is that drugs did not cause the premature death of his beautiful wife. Saying, “In all the time I’ve known her, she has never, and I repeat NEVER, done drugs.
"Not a line of cocaine, not a hit from a joint, nothing. She was anti-drugs. There are no drugs involved.
AUDIO: Brittany Murphy Mother's Dramatic 911 Call
Following Murphy's death Los Angeles investigators took a number of prescription drugs from Monjack’s house, “But they were almost all mine. Brittany took only Klonepam," he says, an anti-anxiety medication prescribed to control the seizures she occasionally had. And Sarafem, a drug approved for mood swings during a woman’s menstrual cycle.
“The drug rumors made her lose roles, I’m sure,” says Monjack. And he says the rumors were difficult for her to deal with, depressing her and making her fret that she might not find a comeback vehicle. “All she wanted to do was to make movies. She was waiting for the role that would revive her career, waiting for the call from Penny Marshall or Gary Fleder, people she had worked with before, that they might remember how talented an actress she was and call with a new magical role.”
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But that call never came, and sadly, Monjack says, “There’s always some new girl getting off a bus. In Hollywood, girls like Brittany are disposable.”
The official cause of Brittany's death has yet to be announced, the coroner is awaiting results from toxicological and neurological tests before making his official ruling.
