Murphy’s grieving mother was distraught when she learned the jewels that Monjack had claimed to be worth millions of dollars were fake, quickly realizing all the properties and stocks he had claimed to have invested in were lies, too. Her career seemed to be in a lull due to a few lackluster projects, and Murphy was nursing a broken heart over a string of short-lived relationships, including with her 8 Mile costar Eminem and with Ashton Kutcher, as well as failed engagements to talent manager Jeff Kwatinetz and Little Black Book production assistant Joe Macaluso.Īfter Monjack’s death, it was uncovered that he had drained Murphy’s bank account of $3 million in just three years. Her friends describe her being in a particularly vulnerable state when she met the aspiring filmmaker in 2006.Īlready, Murphy had succumbed to the Hollywood machine, losing weight, dying her hair blond, and changing her look after being told she was “huggable but not fuckable.” It’s still somewhat of a mystery how Monjack managed to sink his hooks into Murphy. And five months after Murphy’s death, Monjack also passed away, his cause of death nearly identical to hers.

Ultimately, the documentary accuses him of refusing to let Murphy get medical help when she desperately needed it. According to the documentary, Monjack controlled every facet of Murphy’s life and, harboring a sick preference for anorexic-looking women, encouraged Murphy to lose weight and get plastic surgery. The film places the bulk of the blame on Murphy’s 40-year-old husband Monjack, an amateur British screenwriter who is described as a prolific charmer and con man, jumping from woman to woman after he’d bled their finances dry. HBO Max’s What Happened, Brittany Murphy?, a two-part documentary that premieres Thursday, tries to deliver some answers as to what could have caused the bubbly and healthy actress’s health to decline so severely that one of the last people to ever work with Murphy described her looking so frail that she seemed to be in pain every time she moved. Murphy’s death prompted a media circus at the height of the aughts, when tabloids and paparazzi terrorized young starlets, a time when celebrity blogger Perez Hilton gleefully used Microsoft Paint to cruelly ridicule and mock the likes of Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, Lindsay Lohan, and Murphy. And while there was no evidence of alcohol or illicit substance abuse, an autopsy showed she had a combination of painkillers and over-the-counter medicine in her system. Her cause of death was cited as untreated pneumonia, exacerbated by Murphy being extremely anemic and underweight. The 32-year-old had died a few days earlier at her Los Angeles home, where she’d been holed up with her mysterious and controlling husband, Simon Monjack. The former child actress, who had blossomed into Hollywood’s beloved girl next door with the success of Clueless, had always said it was her favorite holiday. It was a sad twist of fate when actress Brittany Murphy was laid to rest a day before Christmas in 2009.

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