The Tragic Life of Brittany Murphy

The Tragic Life of Brittany Murphy

Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’re looking at the tragic life of Brittany Murphy.

For this video, we’ll be looking at various events that befell the life and legacy of this actress and singer.

What do you miss most about this iconic woman? Let us know in the comments below!

Born on November 10, 1977, Brittany Murphy had a difficult time as a young child. Her father, Angelo Bertolotti, was a reputed mobster who had spent time in prison for various drug offences, and he divorced Murphy’s mother Sharon when Murphy was just two years old. Luckily, Murphy’s mother was an enormous support in her personal and creative life. Forgoing her father, Murphy and her mother sold everything they had and moved to Los Angeles when she was between 12 and 13. She landed a few minor acting roles before appearing in a little movie called “Clueless.” Earning very strong reviews and grossing over $50 million, “Clueless” served as the actress’s breakout movie. She was a star by the early 2000s, starring in many notable films like “Girl, Interrupted” and “8 Mile.”

The movies not only gave Murphy critical and commercial success, but they also allowed her to meet many great people. Murphy co-starred in the romantic comedy “Just Married” with Ashton Kutcher and the two began dating in late 2002. Following the dissolution of their relationship, Murphy became engaged to talent manager Jeff Kwatinetz. The engagement only lasted for a few months, but Murphy recovered and met a production assistant while working on a movie called “Little Black Book.” Unfortunately, this engagement also ended before marriage in 2006. Hollywood relationships are notoriously difficult, and within a span of just four years, Murphy had endured multiple failed relationships and broken engagements.

But many stars go through relationships without suffering in the way that Murphy suffered. Those issues stemmed from other sources.
In the mid 2000s, Murphy had noticeably lost a lot of weight, and many people became concerned. Some claimed that she was getting into drugs, and others opined that she was suffering from an eating disorder. Murphy denied both of these allegations. However, alleged anonymous friends of Murphy told People that the famous actress was struggling with her image and career. One friend told the magazine that “she had insane self-image issues,” and another stated that “a lot of her problems were due to poor self image.” According to them, “She wanted to be a beauty. She didn’t want to be the fat girl from ‘Clueless.’ She didn’t eat a lot. She would drink copious amounts of coffee.” These issues were compounded by her image-conscious mother. Having dropped everything in her life to move Murphy to L.A., her mother was very adamant that her daughter become a star. Unfortunately, this included the encouragement of Murphy’s weight loss. As the anonymous People source claims, “She was obsessed with [Murphy] looking slim.”

She then met and married a British screenwriter named Simon Monjack, but the relationship was rooted in controversy. Monjack was facing numerous legal issues at the time, including charges of credit card fraud in Virginia and a battle with Coutts bank, who was suing him for almost half a million dollars after he was evicted from four different homes. Monjack was also arrested by immigration officials over an expired visa, and he was facing deportation when he married Murphy. As a result, the media widely speculated that the couple had married simply to keep Monjack in the country.

Some of Murphy’s friends were hesitant to agree, but agree they did. They found little genuine love between Murphy and Monjack, and the People source claims, “Not many around her were fans of [Monjack]. She wanted to find someone to share her heart with so badly...it was all a bit forced.” She also hated the house that she and Monjack shared, and she would often wish to stay at the Beverly Hills Hotel rather than going home. Monjack wouldn’t humor her, as he wanted to take advantage of their 10,000-square-foot home.

By this point, Murphy’s life was beginning to fall apart. She was dealing with severe weight and image issues, and she was in a strained relationship that saw little support from friends and the media. Murphy’s co-workers had also begun to notice a monumental difference in the actress, and people were getting scared. Various sources told People that “She was unfocused and never knew her lines” and that “she’d go in and out of consciousness in the middle of takes.” These troubles even led to lost work, as Murphy was fired from various productions, including a Disney project. A pharmacist named Eddie Bubar, who owns a West L.A. drug store, took notice of her increased medication intake and feared that she was being “overmedicated.” He suspected that she and Monjack were getting prescriptions from more than one doctor and eventually banned them from his store.

This all led to the morning of December 20, 2009. At just 32 years old, Murphy passed away following cardiac arrest. Her mother had found the actress in the shower of their L.A. home - the same house that Murphy reportedly hated. A coroner’s report was released the following February, revealing that Murphy had died of pneumonia that was exacerbated by anemia and the use of prescription drugs. Just five months after Murphy’s death, Monjack was found dead in the same house, and a coroner’s report claimed that he had passed from almost the exact same circumstances. Both had died of pneumonia exacerbated by anemia - though Monjack had lower, non-lethal levels of prescription medication in his system.

In the midst of the conspiracy theories and mysteries that spawned from the similar deaths, Murphy’s passing also caused a lot of consternation within her family. Her father went through the courts to obtain samples of Murphy’s hair, as he wasn’t buying the coroner’s official explanation. He had the samples tested, and they showed high levels of various heavy metals. While the presence of these heavy metals could have mundane explanations (like various foods and hair dyes), Murphy’s father believed that she was poisoned. He even went on various news programs and claimed that his daughter had been murdered. This opinion was widely derided, and Murphy’s mother called them “inexcusable efforts to smear my daughter’s memory.”

Murphy’s legacy continues to face tragic issues. Shortly after her death, both Monjack and Murphy’s mother started a charity called the Brittany Murphy Foundation. However, they had failed to apply for not-for-profit status and were forced to refund all the donations that they had received. In October of 2021, Murphy became the subject of an HBO Max documentary titled “What Happened, Brittany Murphy?” Unfortunately, the documentary was critically panned for various reasons. Some thought it focused far too heavily on Monjack rather than Murphy, some criticized the presence of uninformed vloggers and their speculations, and many fans thought it was exploitative and insulting to Murphy’s legacy.
Murphy’s widower once told The Hollywood Reporter, “The nature of this town is exploitive. Brittany would be alive today if she was a housewife in Edison, N.J.” Murphy was a talented and ambitious young woman, but she found herself in a ruthless business that she couldn’t handle. It’s one of the saddest cautionary tales of our time.