It’s Been A Decade Today Since Brittany Murphy’s Death

And please remind me, who was she?

Husband also said odd black vans parked outside their house at all hours. Weird story.

R1, she was an it-girl in the early 00s. She voiced Luanne in King of the Hill and she had a string of success in the early part of last decade. She died mysteriously and randomly and it was a big surprise to everyone.

Her mother was totally shady. First calling the toxic mold theory absurd, then claiming it was toxic mold and suing over it.

Then this...

In November 2013, Angelo Bertolotti claimed that a toxicology report showed that deliberate poisoning by heavy metals, including antimony and barium, was a possible cause of Brittany Murphy's death. Sharon Murphy described the claim as "a smear".

The coroner wrote “deferred” on her death certificate.

Her father wanted hair samples and nail clippings saved and tested. The court shot down the request.

[post redacted because linking to dailymail.co.uk clearly indicates that the poster is either a troll or an idiot (probably both, honestly.) Our advice is that you just ignore this poster but whatever you do, don't click on any link to this putrid rag.]

Her mother wouldn’t let her go to the hospital. Gee, I wonder why.

Huh, I always thought she overdosed.

Gap model in 2001!

She was adorable in “Clueless”. She seemed like a sweet person who married an asshole and had a nutcase (and possibly murderous) mom.

I death shocked the hell out of me. I'll never forget that day. I remember kim Kardashian tweeting, omg I can't believe brittany murphy died, or something like that.

Her death was really sad, and very random. Was not expecting that at all. Dead at only 32, very sad. I'll be 32 next year.

Brittany's half brother recently confirmed that her mother was actually in a relationship with Simon (Brittany's now dead husband).

I still think the mother killed them.

Hollywood can be so fucking creepy.

Weren't they both heroin addicts?

R14 yup, the totally shady, and completely cunty mother is my prime suspect.

who's bumping all the threads about her, tho?

Yeah, her death was very sketchy for sure. I am almost positive that she was into heavy drugs though (not that this matters at all when it comes to her passing, bit it does add additional "players" when it comes to a homicide). There were so many strange unanswered facts about her death for sure. Very sad.

We learned in beauty school that people aren't black, or white, or red or yellow....

"Mold" is an odd cause of illness or death in Los Angeles where WATER is in short supply. It rarely rains here (in comparison to Florida for instance) and black mold infestation is not a big issue. As stated in Chinatown, "Los Angeles is a desert community". Mold = weird cover-up (if you eliminate the possibility of broken plumbing - which I never heard any reference to). I might be wrong, this happened 10 years ago - but it was WEIRD.

I miss her :( she was sooooo talented, y’all

The mother poisoned them.

That poor girl.

I recently watched the very uneven but entertaining Drop Dead Gorgeous with a very young Murphy in a supporting role, and she really had an instant appeal and chemistry with the other performers.

It’s no wonder she became a star.

And she was a fantastic LuAnne.

The heavy metals were from hair dye.

So back several years ago when I lived in Oregon, Brittany Murphy was filming a thriller in my neighborhood, down the road where the larger mansions were. So I walked my dog down the street to where the movie set was set up. There were trailers and trucks set up everywhere, I was just idly walking by. Suddenly this unhinged sort of woman with Tammy Faye makeup goes "Oh I love your dog!" I look up and here comes Brittany Murphy AND her weird husband Simon. She was holding HER small dog, whom she called her child. We all chatted about our dogs for a little while. I wasn't asked to leave the set nor did I get the impression there were bodyguards or tight security around. I was just a friendly neighbor and had free-ish access to this film set.

Let me say, as cool as it was to bump into the star of the movie so effortlessly, that my initial thrill was quickly quelled as I sensed just how creepy and sad the three of those folks seemed in the flesh. Something was very off--it was PALPABLE. Simon seemed twitchy, paranoid and cranky. Brittany seemed very, very fragile and frail, like maybe she was anorexic at the time. And the mother was the spitting image of Baby Jane. It was clear that there was a co-dependent thing going on with the three of them. For one, why was Brittany being escorted everywhere by her husband on a film set? That seemed odd. And I walked away feeling very sorry for Brittany Murphy and not even knowing why I felt that way. She just seemed kind of dead inside. It was later that year that she died, and Simon soon after. Freaky!

I never bought the mold story. If that was the case, how did the mom live even though she lived in the house too?

I remember thinking at the time that the cause of death would turn out to be drugs or anorexia, given how pale and gaunt she looked in her last public appearance (see below). It's certainly one of the stranger celebrity deaths. Why did a Hollywood actress get involved with that creepy Simon? From what I remember, her father believed his ex-wife killed their daughter and son-in-law.

she was the best actress of her generation. she had some weird inner light that came through. and she was murdered.

I liked the single she released with Paul Oakenfold. She had a good voice.

Nothing about her death added up, and her husband's death a short time later (under equally obscure circumstances) was beyond sketchy. The common thread is her mother. I am surprised she has not been investigated for their deaths.

I thought the mother died too?

I saw on one of those Reelz programs how they were both anemic when they died. What would cause anemia in a man?

Arsenic poisoning can be diagnosed as anemia.

Lead poisoning can cause anemia, R34. It makes me wonder given Brittany's father's claim that both she and Simon had heavy metals in their bodies. Sharon is a sketchy bitch

I still think that drugs were a big factor, weakening both and making them more vulnerable to pneumonia or whatever it was that killed them. Because yes, there were a ton of rumors about drugs and erratic behavior in the years before she died. That wasnt due to mold, or heavy metal poisoning.

As for thhe mother.. . I do find it hard to conceive of a stage mother killing her meal ticket, but anything is possible with crazy.

Simon Monjack = Artie Lang

She was a drug addict and her husband was her supplier and a grifter. Meeting him was her demise. He overdosed also soon after. Tragic.

Sad.

Neither of them overdosed. Stop saying that.

The mother poisoned them. It was arsenic.

Here's a photo of the BM's husband, Simon Monjack, and BM's mom, Sharon Murphy.

I always thought something was wrong with BM when she got married to Monjack. Low self-esteem.

the mother looks like the husband in drag

I'll bet you $118,000 that the "toxic mold" was caused by Brittany & her husband wetting the bed one too many times.

^ stupid. The Patsy Ramsey shit is old.

Brittany was a talented girl. She had a long resume for someone only 32 and some very good performances. Combined with her singing talent and stage experience, she might have had greater success in the future. She was almost always singled out in any review. it's a mystery and a shame what happened to her. Her life was going off the rails the last couple of years before her death. It was either drugs or she was murdered. Only cold meds were found in her body.... Strange sad curious death. She was great in 8 Mile and Girl Interrupted, Drop Dead Gorgeous and sang really well in Happy Feet. Something very unique and a bit troubling about her.

R27, I felt the same kind of creepiness from Brittany whenever I'd see her on tv. She seemed very frail. It wasn't fear, it was more like I felt she probably had some kind of eating disorder plus drug problem.

A drug problem is basically the same thing as an eating disorder. She ate too many drugs. And possibly toxic metals.

She was once engaged to Ashton Kutcher but she should have married Joe.

Alicia killed her for reading her down.

There was nothing mysterious about her death, once you read the autopsy report. She died from a heart attack. And why? Well first, she had ten different bottles of drugs on her nightstand: Carbamazepine, an anti-convulsant, Methylprednisolone, an anti-inflammatory treatment, Propranolol, a heart drug, Klonopin and Ativan, both anti-anxiety drugs, Topamax, an anti-seizure medication, the antibiotic Biaxin, pain reliever Vicoprofen, anti-deressant Fluoxetine and Hydrocodone, another pain killer. She had taken several of those drugs shortly before dying.

Second, she was suffering from severe anemia. Severe anemia is no joke. It doesn't usually hit all at once, it's progressive. So over time, you just slowly feel weaker and more tired, but you don't think anything of it, because it's gradual. But here's the thing: you might still THINK you're okay, but your body is in desperate straits. Anemia starves your system of oxygen. Now add in her pneumonia. Then add in the hydrocodone that was found in her system: opiates are known to depress respiration. Put it all together, and your heart isn't getting sufficient oxygen, so at some point boom - anemia-induced heart attack.

It very nearly happened to me. I finally went to the ER because my chest pains weren't going away, even though otherwise I felt fine. And of course, once in the ER the chest pains went away, so the doc said I could go home if the tests showed nothing wrong. Fifteen minutes later he RUNS into my cubicle and demands to know why my hemoglobin level was critically low. I was admitted while they put in an order for units of whole blood to be transfused. Unfortunately, I'm a rare blood type so it took over twelve hours before that happened. In the meantime, I wasn't allowed off the gurney/out of bed even to walk to the bathroom. I had to be taken in a wheelchair, because, they explained, my heart was starved for oxygen and I could have an anemia-induced heart attach at the slightest exertion. And I, baffled, kept insisting, "But I feel fine!"

The next day, after the transfusions, I discovered how wrong that was. Suddenly my brain was clearer, I had a LOT more energy, and I felt a whole lot better. Since anemia creeps up on you, I hadn't realized how lousy I was actually feeling until I got those transfusions.

Unfortunately for Brittany, between the anemia, the drugs, and the pneumonia, her heart just gave out.

Maybe she had a drug problem...but maybe the MOM was the cause OF that problem. Maybe there was some Munchhausen shit going on here.

Too many coincidences and odd things going on here.

Shady shit.

How the fuck did she stay awake on so many different depressants?

What causes severe anemia?

Your psycho mama feeding you small doses of arsenic....

A beautiful Italian girl.

Everything she was taking was legal. I’ve read the autopsy report and it doesn’t add up which is why the coroner put down deferred.

When I see anemia with suspicious death, I automatically think arsenic. Her symptoms were text book arsenic poisoning. When you add in the fact that her mother downplayed her illness and told her not to go to the hospital, more than a few alarm bells go off. I can’t believe they wouldn’t test her hair and fingernails. Unreal.

Weirdos.

Brother speaks out today.

Estate left to mother in will.

Everyone please see R50. That's it. She had a bad cold. She never went to get it treated. Lord only knows why. She was taking mad shit. She couldn't breathe. They never opened the windows? the fuck. Mom is definitely weird though. The metals were from hair dye like stated above.

The Hollywood Reporter article also mentions the couple's paranoia regarding the Rising Glenn Road residence where they both died: Simon told us they had to take extreme security precautions because they were under surveillance by helicopters and their phone was bugged.

R61 the paranoia could easily be a neurological symptoms due to some sort of environmental poisoning. Environmental exposure (through breathing in contaminated air for example ) has been known to affect the brain.

It's so sad what happened to Brittany. She was definitely one of my favourite actresses and I presumed she would have a long career.

Forget Angelina Jolie in Girl, Interrupted, it was Murphy's performance that was the scene-stealer and the heart-stealer. She was so affecting and so powerful. I will never understand why they went with Jolie's one-note, hammy performance over Murphy's moving performance.

Even in a standard thriller like Don't Say A Word, Murphy was excellent (and she received great reviews).

Then she started to do straight-to-video movies and I knew something was off.

I believe I've posted this here before, but one of my distant relatives worked on 'Girl, Interrupted'. He said Brittany was an absolute sweetheart but it was clear she came from a very troubled background. Angelina was pretty cool but hung more with the male crew members, did very little interacting with her female co-stars. Winona was crazy and demanding. Maybe she was too method?

Didn't she suffer from severe anemia because of some poisoning? Tragic.

Whaddya mean we still don't know what happened?

She croaked

Does her mother do consultations?

If heavy metals were the result of hair dye, half of Hollywood would be dead.

She was poisoned by the mother.

The husband could quite possibly have been involved so he was offed too.

Follow the money.

I’m shocked anyone cared initially, and now someone cares enough to make a post about these nobodies ten years later? Come on DL, we can do better.

I predict in less than a decade Millie Bobbi Brown will win her first Oscar in the biopic of BM’s life.

She was very enmeshed with her mother and very codependent with the mother and husband, They didn’t have a life outside of Brittney’s career. Mom could’ve seen that she was losing control over her to Simon and started poisoning them.

R25 Drop Dead Gorgeous is a classic.

r54 is writing a country song. Keep going...

r64, if you don't know what Method Acting is, which you clearly don't, stop referencing it. Method Acting. i.e. Stanislavksy's Method, is the employment of 'sensory objects' to bridge the gaps between the actor and character's experiences. It has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH untrained morons trying live like their characters. It is the OPPOSITE of the literal. The Method is about conjuring imaginary sensory stimulus such as the taste of lemon when your character has to say something they find difficult to express. Shooting heroin because you're playing a junkie is the OPPOSITE of The Method.

Judging by R57's picture, Monjack had one hell of a wide head.

I love that movie where she plays Dakota Fanning's nanny.

Me too r76. I watch it every so often.

From "UPTOWN GIRLS"

Brittany: I don't see any grow ups around.

Dakota: I DO.

Gets me everytime. 😢

Loved her, she was special and unique. Poor girl 😞

I have no idea who Brittany Murphy was. I am officially old.

Yeah you are r80, considering she is probably best known for Clueless, which came out 24 years ago...

My best friend and I were watching Clueless when news hit that she had died. We were both actually devastated.

Brittany was almost pure sunshine, and unfortunately, people like her attract users, grifters, and those whose inner lives are completely dark. They use people like Brittany, almost as a window, attempting to open it, and feel the warmth of standing in the soft light.

The tragedy is, that the people who use them as a mechanism to feel genuine happiness, even if only around them, cannot do so without wanting to completely control that joy, or without insisting that they be the gatekeepers to that window, the window that leads to what they seek. Eventually, any small signs of independence, or boundaries coming from the person they use (like a drug), becomes this huge threat, and the more the other person pulls, the more the user pushes, until they eventually overpower the one they seek to control, pushing them out of the very same window that once offered them light, ever so graciously.

Brittany was working in an industry run amuck with grifters, liars, users, and true, authentic, textbook sociopaths. “What’s a nice girl like you, doing in a place like this”?, applies in her situation, PROFOUNDLY so.

Even sadder, is that because she was already immersed and exposed to some extremely fucked op and dysfunctional behavior, due to her mother’s unquestionably sick, codependent, “parenting”, Brittany’s “red flag”, or “warning systems” didn’t trigger the appropriate responses necessary, in order to protect one’s self from the events that would lead to her personal “code Blue”, and untimely death.

Her mother may not have literally killed her, but her mother created a built in environment made to expose her daughter to constant toxicity, and incapacity, mental, emotional, physical, & otherwise. She was determined to control Brittany’s life, 100%, or else, and she ingratiated herself in profoundly inappropriate ways, in order to use Simon as a witting or unwitting tool in the quest to remain in control of what she feel she created, a breathing, living, doll, or puppet, instead of a human being, capable of experiencing completely autonomy and agency.

The mother’s entire life was designed and constructed to eventually destroy her own daughter.

Poor Brittany. The poor girl never had a fucking chance.

R82 - truly insightful. And such personal meaning. I attracted one of those “dark souls” in my youth and was eventually able to extricate myself from the relationship relatively unscathed but it took years.

That was beautiful, R82.

R83, I get it.

You have to have some safety mechanisms deployed to protect yourself when you’re a genuinely happy and good natured person.

People will chew you up and spit you out, EASILY, without any awareness of why you became their favorite meal.

Unfortunately, cynicism and skepticism have their uses, and are highly valuable, when applied appropriately.

Unhappy people hate happy people. That’s just the way they’re built. Get away from them immediately, because if they can, they will destroy you, or eventually, die trying.

Thank you, R84. 😘

R85 fka R82 (really wish handles were required here!), Your comment in 85 is something it took me 45 years to understand, accept, and learn how to manage. It's an awful truth, but better an awful truth than a devastating experience (which I had, and it derailed me for years).. Thank you for your eloquent expression of it.

R64, none of that surprises me. Brittany always came off as damaged to me but sweet and endearing. She's someone you'd cheer for even when you know she has her issues. Chelsea Handler DID say that Angelina comes off as "not a girl's girl" and she is right, I cannot imagine Jolie ever having many female friends (probably due to how she was raised by her mother to respond to male attention). And Winona? Well, yeah, she's batshit and mediocre.

Chelsea Handler? Seriously? That idiot?

R88, I don't like her either but she is completely right about Jolie not being a girl's girl.

Loved Brittany, her short career was brilliant.

Cardiac arrest due to anemia is not at mysterious, but the mystery is what exactly caused the anemia. Also if poorly treated pneumonia affected her ability to breathe, again, cardiac arrest is not suspicious. But pneumonia death in a young woman is. Weird all around. And very sad.

Isn’t her father in the Mafia? I feel like I read that here at one time.

She had a serious eating disorder and drug problem for years. Plus extensive, extensive amounts of plastic surgery that was on a true body dysmorphic level.

That’s a killer combo right there and seriously there’s no mystery. Her close friends and family were in serious denial about it (she didn’t even like to take cough medicine! Lol) but what else is new. She gave into the Hollywood pressure (to an extreme most people don’t) and then she died.

How does one explain the autopsy not revealing poison?

R92, you have to do specific tests. They weren’t done. They don’t do automatic arsenic poisoning tests. You have to take hair samples and nail clipping. It’s almost always missed. Bodies have been dug up and tested after the fact.

Poor kid. R27’s story was chilling.

She hit it big at the same time as Julia Roberts and Meg Ryan but was really no threat to them. Brittany was willing to play the kook more than the others but rarely played a normal person. There is something disturbing about her desire to transform from a chubby dark-haired Italian girl into a blonde rail-thin sex goddess, and in her last films she was like a zombie with lank hair, drag queen makeup and dead eyes.

R95 I agree — the extent which she was intent on not only transforming herself, but on looking an entirely different ethnicity/race practically, was very disturbing to be always.

And it’s ultimately what killed her — she died trying to be a skinny white/blonde woman.

She was reportedly planning to move to New York to revive her career and her mother didn't want to leave L.A.

[quote] She hit it big at the same time as Julia Roberts and Meg Ryan but was really no threat to them.

Huh??! She didn’t hit it big until the 2000s after Clueless in 1995. Meg and Julia were 1990.

Her mother killed her.

Is it true that Drew Barrymore became jealous of her because Brittany was getting more attention for her role in Riding in Cars with Boys?

I'll never tell...

Why were she and her husband living with her mom??

She was extremely anemic. Her hemoglobin was 4 or less I believe, which is barely compatible with life. And she had other issues, like pneumonia and multiple prescription drug usage that all contributed.

Her autopsy is online and is a good read.

Shitty actress.

Much of her body of work consisted of pratfalls and getting injured in the name of "comedy."

R100 I fucking love that movie.

Comedic timing is difficult, R104. Sorry you didn't appreciate her gifts.

Mommy killed her.

R105, I heard that was the scene where people could see that Brittany was a good actress and Drew felt intimidated by that because it would mean she would get less noticed for the same movie (where she was the lead).

R108 I thought they both gave great performances. It's one of my favourite Drew Barrymore movies.

I hated her voicing of Luanne on King of the Hill. I suppose it is what Mike Judge and Greg Daniels wanted but for me she is the weak link in the ensemble. Real comediennes are funny when they cry but Brittany made it cringeworthy.

R110, really? I thought Luanne was voiced perfectly. King of the Hill is probably the most "real" depiction of middle-class Americans ever seen on tv. And even in the later seasons, it never deteriorated in the way The Simpsons did.

R96 - I think she aspired to be Gwyneth Paltrow.

Her mother killed her.

Clueless is on CMT. Brittany is so amazing in it.

r113, I know you know of what you speak, but don’t you think it’s weird that cops wouldn’t have tested her husband for poison? I do think the whole thing is beyond fishy, and yet it seems too weird that cops would have just ignored the fishiness? Surely LE was suspicious too?

I am watching the Almost Home episodes on YouTube. Brittany is very good in the show and looks exotic in an Italian way. It's interesting to see her so early in her career and before she became so mannered doing the kook bit.

If she had lived, she wouldn't have aged well.

[quote]I know you know of what you speak, but don’t you think it’s weird that cops wouldn’t have tested her husband for poison?

BHManny is a troll who doesn't know anything, he just pretends to.

Toxicology was done on both Murphy and Monjack, which is apparently how they were able to rule out mold. Not that it's not odd for two youngish people to die of acute pneumonia and anemia six months apart, but this article has a few theories that seem relatively plausible.

Mold in the drugs maybe.

An iconic character in one of my favorite movies— Daisy Randone. Brittany Murphy had such a lovely energy with a darkness to it, such a unique performer. We definitely lost a performer who had more to give. So many demons and a strange personal life, which is tragic considering she seemed like a genuinely sweet person.

Troll? You're funny.

I think she’s getting a revisionist makeover. Like Lindsay Lohan (“she was SO GOOD in ‘Mean Girls’!”) or Marilyn Monroe. Everyone’s a sucker for a waif.

R117 how many more nose jobs would she have had, how much whiter would she have made her skin, and how much More weight would she have lost I think are the real questions here.

Basically, she couldn’t go any further without dying.

Apparently Simon did her look for her last projects and he did her no favors. Maybe she would have realized this and dumped him.

She pretty much ruined SIN CITY with her extremely amateurish acting.

I found it hard to believe that Brittany's mother killed her own daughter but apparently they had a co-dependent relationship which got more twisted when Simon appeared and moved in with them. But after Britney died and her mother sold some of her daughter's things on ebay including her wedding photos I started to question the woman's motives.

R126 I also questioned the mom's motives after she started selling Brittany's things online.

God needed another way harsh angel.