Brittany Death Suit

by Gerald Posner Info

Gerald Posner is former chief investigative reporter for The Daily Beast. He's the award-winning author of 10 investigative nonfiction bestsellers, on topics ranging from political assassinations, to Nazi war criminals, to 9/11, to terrorism. His latest book, Miami Babylon: Crime, Wealth and Power—A Dispatch from the Beach, was published in October. He lives in Miami Beach with his wife, the author Trisha Posner.

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In an exclusive interview, Brittany Murphy’s husband Simon Monjack reveals he’s suing Warner Brothers for wrongful death; talks about how drug rumors destroyed Brittany’s career; denies rumors that he was drunk on the set of The Caller; and talks about Brittany’s final moments.

The Daily Beast has learned that Simon Monjack, the much-maligned husband of Brittany Murphy, is only days away from filing a wrongful-death action against Warner Brothers, claiming that the studio is responsible for the unexpected death of the 32-year-old actress last December. “They killed her,” he told me. Although the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office hasn’t released a final cause of death, Monjack and Brittany’s mother, Sharon, who also spoke to me, are convinced that the once-promising star died of a heart attack from the stress caused by Warner Brother’s canceling of a contract just two weeks before she died. Murphy was excited to have begun production on the sequel to the animated hit Happy Feet, but when she was fired by Warner Brothers, Monjack says, “She was devastated.”

View Exclusive Images of Brittany Murphy photographed by Simon Monjack

A month before Warner Brothers’ decision, Murphy had been let go from The Caller, a film shooting in Puerto Rico, and replaced with Twilight star Rachelle Lefevre. There were rumors that Monjack—who did Brittany’s hair and makeup—had been so difficult on the set, sometimes showing up drunk, that the producers had let her go. One Hollywood executive told me that the studio had been looking for a reason to dismiss Brittany because Lefevre was a much hotter star.

“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.”

Sharon Murphy, Brittany’s mother, visited the Puerto Rican set frequently. “Simon protected Brittany,” she says. “That is the role he assumed after they married and it’s why a lot of people in Hollywood can’t stand him.”

If they didn’t like Monjack before, his imminent Warner Brothers lawsuit isn’t going to endear him to the Hollywood power brokers. “It’s a cruel town,” he says. “Warner Brothers relied on conjecture and hearsay about the Puerto Rico film for why they canceled Brittany’s role in Happy Feet. You’re disposable as an actress or actor.”

Monjack described for the first time the morning that Brittany died in his Hollywood Hills house. She had gone to the bathroom shortly before 8 a.m. “That was her comfort zone in our very huge home,” he says. “It was the only Brittany-size room.” There was a small table, and she often spent hours there. When her mother went to talk to her, she found her laying on the floor unconscious, and yelled out for Simon.

“I came running in. I immediately started doing CPR.” Sharon remembers that the 5’3” Murphy, at barely over 100 pounds, seemed so very tiny as her 6’2”, 235-pound husband worked on her.

“I felt a tiny heart beat,” Monjack told me, his voice cracking over the phone. “I was pushing with the heel of my hand. And every second I pushed, I felt my hand become stronger and her heart weaker. And then it stopped. And I kept pushing. She died in my arms. I knew she was dead.”