the tragic death of Brittany murphy
December 20, 2009 at 8AM. Sharon is pleading for help because her daughter has passed out. The operator tells her to check to see if her daughter has anything blocking her mouth like food or vomit and she says “she threw up tons of stuff, tons of water.” Then her daughter’s husband comes into the room and begins CPR. The operator says that the compressions are too slow but to keep doing them until help arrives.
Paramedics arrive at the Hollywood Hills mansion to find “115 pound Brittany Murphy” unconscious on the bathroom floor. With her were her mother, Sharon, and her husband Simon Monjack, a “heavyset englishman.”
Diane Dimond is here to give us some background on Britt.
She was born on November 10, 1977. Her parents were Sharon Murphy and Angelo Bertolotti. Her parents met in an unusual way. Angelo Bertolotti was from NYC, but moved to Florida where he owned nightclubs. He was connected to the mob and had some shady dealings. He hired Sharon to work in one of his clubs, and Sharon fell in love with the dangerous mob lifestyle and the “fountains of cash” that ran through the business. They quickly married, but Sharon got tired of Angelo being in and out of jail and decided to file for divorce when Brittany was 2 years old.
We actually talk to Angelo Bertolotti who is very old at the time of this recording. I’m not sure when it was done, but he passed away in early 2019 at the age of 92. So he is likely in his 90’s at this time. He says that Sharon knew he was involved in crime, and that he was heavily involved in his business and had little to do with the marriage. So Sharon took Brittany and moved to Edison, NJ.
Brittany wanted to be on TV from a very early age. We get to see a kind of home video where Brittany is “hosting” a tv show at a school fair maybe? She is doing her classic talking and giggling; one of my favorite things about her. You can’t help but smile when you watch her. Brittany had her sights set on Hollywood, and Sharon was by her side. A journalist Bryn Hammond says that they were extremely close and more like friends than mother and daughter. Journalist Mark Ebner said they considered themselves each other’s soul mates…
Brittany started getting jobs and helping support the family.
And then… 1995. Clueless came out and Brittany was a huge star.
Ok, I take issue with what Bryn says here, he says that she was, “typecast as the fat, plump brunette.” I’m totally unaware of a time when Brittany was fat or plump. She did go blonde, but I don’t think it was because she was “ugly” as brunette. She changed her hair color a lot. And her weight doesn’t matter, but I just don’t care for him saying that. She was not taking roles of “the fat friend” or whatever.
She started getting bigger roles, and started dating famous men. She dated Eminem when she was in 8 Mile (which I didn’t know) and of course Ashton Kutcher after Just Married. But she never found love. Then, in 2006 she met Simon Monjack. She read a script based on a book called “White Hotel” and made it her mission to meet the screenwriter.
Now, we meet Linda Monjack. Ick. She is Simon’s mother. She says that Simon was a gifted writer and director and could find people’s souls with the camera lens. Simon had made a name for himself as the “creative force” behind the movie Factory Girl. It was a movie loosely based on Andy Warhol’s muse Edie Sedgewick and starred Sienna Miller. Simon was a screenwriter for the movie and found himself in fancy Hollywood circles. Brittany started talking to him about business, and it quickly evolved into more. Brittany was said to be smitten, and found the man of her dreams.
Simon’s mom says he told her immediately about Brittany. They were married within a year, and Linda says that she didn’t learn about the wedding until after it happened because Simon was always very impulsive. She said that this was his 3rd marriage, but the first one where he was really in love. So they get married and start their happily ever after, right? Almost. Sharon moves in with them. As soon as they’re married. The home they own is a $3.9M home that used to be owned by Brittany Spears. Two years later, Brittany is unconscious on her bathroom floor.
Paramedics are working hard to keep Brittany alive until they can get her to the hospital.
She is rushed to Cedars-Sinai hospital, and doctors are working furiously to get her heart started. It’s too late. At 10:05AM, Brittany Murphy is declared dead. Sharon completely fell apart. Simon called his mother, and she said he was totally devastated. Angelo was in complete shock, as was the rest of the world. When the news hit, the media swarmed the Hollywood Hills mansion. Everyone wanted to know, how could she have died?? She was only 32 years old and seemed incredibly healthy.
We now meet Ed Winter who was the chief coroner for the Brittany Murphy death investigation. He also oversaw the investigations of Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston. The big guns go to this guy. They interviewed Simon within a few hours at the home. They say that people of course react in many different ways, but he appeared to be confused. Simon was very outspoken and against having an autopsy done. Winter explained that unless he could provide proof of religious exemption or a court order, the autopsy would be moving forward.
The next step is to canvas the house for evidence.
In the bedroom they found 90 different prescription bottles just on Simon’s side of the bed. There were anxiety and depression medications, habit forming painkillers… everything. And they found more on Brittany’s side. With this information, reports emerge that portray Brittany differently than she has been in the media. Someone who worked with her on the movie Spun said that they never saw her use drugs on set, but that she was smoking crack with Simon Monjack after the fact…. How do they know this? I wouldn’t doubt she was on prescription drugs based on the evidence in the house, but I’m not sure that is totally credible if they didn’t see it.
She was becoming more difficult to work with. Her agency and manager dumped her, and she started getting offers for B rated films rather than blockbuster hits. Mark Ebner says it’s no coincidence that people started noticing her erratic behavior at the time she got with Simon. It all centered around that change in her life. Diane Dimond says that Simon was totally controlling.
People were beginning to suspect that Simon had something to do with Brittany’s death, and by 2010, they were digging into his past. During this time, people are coming forward with new information about Simon Monjack’s past. One of which was Simone Bienne, his first wife. They met in 2001 and married in Vegas. When they were dating, Simon told Simone that he owned several Damien Hirts paintings and was the heir to a steel mill. Ok I did not know who Damien Hirst is so I looked him up. He’s said to be the richest living artist in the UK and according to his website, he is a “British contemporary artist. His varied practice explores the complex relationships between art, religion, science, life and death.” Bryn Hammond says “he literally didn’t have any of those.” So they get married, he moves into her house and becomes a “slob overnight”. They separated after a matter of weeks, maybe months, but it was almost immediate.
His mom is like “oh well, that’s Simon. He realized she wasn’t for him?!?!?!?” I think it was the other way around. In a settlement, Simon was ordered to pay $50k to Simone. Maybe for like lying about who he was and getting her to marry him under false pretense? I don’t know what the settlement is for and she is very tight-lipped in the public eye. But did he pay the settlement?
NO
So NOW we find out that Simon wasn’t actually a screenwriter for the movie Factory Girl.
Diane Dimond tells us that he basically accused the writers of Factory Girl of stealing his script, so rather than fight a legal battle they give him an IMDB credit on the movie to make him go away. This credit gets him “known” in the Hollywood scene, but not in a good way. His nickname is “Simon Conjack.” He does what any great con man does. He bases all his lies on small bits of fact like Lou Pearlman, so people wonder if maybe he really is telling the truth.
But nobody in Hollywood liked him.
I cannot even with Simon’s mom. Now she says that he just told outlandish stories and was just using people to write his next script, he wasn’t a liar or a con man, they got him all wrong! His drawback was, though, that he did sometimes mistake fantasy for real life.
So now we’re back to the aftermath of Brittany’s death. The toxicology and autopsy results are in. Winter says that she died of pneumonia, anemia and an overdose of over the counter medications. It’s very surprising that with all the heavy drugs they found in the home none were found in her system as you might suspect. One question is why did she have anemia? The coroner attributed this to her having unusually heavy periods. Which I have heard of causing anemia. But hold that thought because anemia comes back up and we cannot attribute it to heavy periods.
Winter says had they taken Brittany to the hospital or doctor even once, she would still be alive. The OTC meds were just masking her symptoms, so that if she was getting worse, it may not have been as noticeable. She just got worse and worse.
The media is going crazy; why did he not get her help? So to fend this off, he goes on Larry King Live. Larry King just has this look on his face like “wtf is going on here?” Needless to say, this interview makes things worse instead of better. So then he invites Radar magazine to come in and tour “the death house.” His words. He says “you’re the first people to see the infamous bathroom.” Can you imagine showing clothes of your deceased spouse talking like you’re at a store with your friend picking something out for her to wear this weekend? Isn’t that cute???? I don’t even know what to say.
Simon says they just had a blast together. Everything was crazu. He’d play piano and she’d fall asleep on the floor. Simon’s mother just says “it seems bizarre, doesn’t it? Why would he do that? I don’t know?” And then, before commercial break, we hear ANOTHER 911 call of Sharon saying now that her son in law isn’t breathing. It’s like when Phoebe had her 2nd heart attack. I’m having another heart attack!
Ok so it’s May 23, 2010, almost 5 months to the day that Brittany died. Sharon Murphy has called 911 to report that her son in law Simon Monjack has stopped breathing. At 9:45PM, Simon Monjack is pronounced dead. So Ed Winter is back in the house 5 months after the investigation into Brittany’s death. They find more prescription bottles, but this time in some odd names. Some were in Simon’s name, some were to Trevor Williams, and some were to, get this, Sharon Monjack. Sharon’s prescriptions were in the bedroom on what used to be Brittany’s side of the bed.
Ed is like “why are your prescriptions in the bedroom?” And she said they shared the bed to comfort each other for the loss of Brittany. Sharon later denies that any prescriptions had the name Sharon Monjack or that she shared the bed with Simon. Bryn Hammond is like “oh they were definitely doing the dirty.” But Linda says that’s not true. She says she spoke to Simon daily, and it just wasn’t like that.
On July 22, 2010, the coroner announced his findings. Simon wasn’t in the best health, and the coroner says he abused his body. His cause of death was acute pneumonia and anemia, just like Brittany. How do they both die of the same thing 5 months apart?
Brittany’s father Angelo isn’t buying this shit. He doesn’t think this is a simple accidental death. He gets Dr. Cyril Wecht involved. In doing research, one of the causes of death- anemia is also a symptom of people who actually died of arsenic poisoning. Arsenic can cause the acute anemia that was found in both Brittany and Simon. And look, this is speculation, but I remember Simon saying that Brittany was super sick before she died and Sharon was making her soup. Just sayin.
Angelo also finds out that the LA coroner’s office didn’t test Brittany’s hair for toxic substances. Her blood and urine were tested but not her hair. Once this was tested, they found that Brittany’s hair tested positive for 10 heavy metals, in crazyyy high quantities. They don’t really go into what that could mean or what those metals could mean.
I looked some of them up:
- Manganese- high manganese levels can cause a problem with iron metabolism in the body. Hello, anemia.
- Selenium- can cause a garlic odor to the breath, a metal taste in the mouth and hair and nail loss.
- Barium can cause heart problems and blood pressure problems.
- If you look up heavy metal poisoning, arsenic is part of that list. But the symptoms include flu like symptoms, anemia, blood pressure issues, among other things. It feels like it fits to me.
Dr. Wecht has never seen anything like this. To confirm the results, they need to exhume Brittany’s body. But the “rights” to do this are in the hands of Sharon Murphy, and she says no. Many people want to know why she wouldn’t want to know exactly what caused her daughter’s death and find this suspicious. Angelo thinks that Brittany was poisoned by Sharon, and then she had to poison Simon to cover her tracks. . He has no question in his mind.
Bryn says that Sharon is a cancer survivor and would have been more prone to getting pneumonia than Simon and Brittany, yet she is the only person of the 3 still living, and she lived in the same house. We learn that Sharon was used to living in the home with Brittany and Simon. They were starting to make plans to move to NYC and maybe have a child, without Sharon. Angelo says Sharon would not have taken this lying down. Sharon denies all accusations and fires back at Angelo saying “he just wants his daughter’s money, don’t listen to him. He’s crazy.”
Sharon wrote the letter for “The Hollywood Reporter” in November of 2013. It reads…
“I have chosen to stay out of the limelight since the tragic and sudden death of my wonderful, talented, loving daughter four years ago this Dec. 20.
From the day of her birth, Brittany was my precious, more dear to me than anything or anyone in the universe. I have been devastated by her loss and that of my son-in-law [Simon Monjack] and have remained in seclusion in my mourning.
I have no choice now but to come forward in the face of inexcusable efforts to smear my daughter’s memory by a man who may be her biological father but was never a real father to her in her lifetime. Angelo Bertolotti has relocated to California in his old age to claim he is here for Brittany, as he never was in life. He has made outrageous statements over the past few years, culminating in this latest madness: that my darling daughter was murdered.
His claims are based on the most flimsy of evidence and are more of an insult than an insight into what really happened, as I will explain to you shortly.
First, I want you to know a little of the real story. I raised Brittany alone. We didn’t have much at first, but we always had each other. My daughter and I were our only family, and we were inseparable and always there for each other in good times and bad. She never left my side as I battled cancer twice, and I was there for her through the trials and tribulations of her beautiful life and career.
Angelo was not there at all after age 1. He certainly wasn’t around during the 12 years he spent in prison on three criminal felony convictions. Throughout her childhood, I was Brittany’s only parent and sole support. No bond could have been stronger.
Angelo did come out of the woodwork when Brittany was a teenager and found success in a number of TV shows just before she was in Clueless. But she quickly saw him for who he is — and didn’t want anything to do with him. He now claims to have had a few meetings with Brittany over the years where he took the occasional photograph, but those must have been brief moments because I was there with her most of the time at home and when she was working — and he was never, ever around. He has admitted he did not see her at all during the final three years of her too-short life.
It sends pain through my heart when I read [in recent reports about Bertolotti’s lab testing results] that “the family said” — meaning Angelo — because he was never her family in reality. She and I and our extended family and close friends were her family, and as she grew in years and professionalism, she was beloved by many, many people, including fellow performers and the great artists in Hollywood.
In light of the recent publicity about a lab test Angelo had done, I have asked some knowledgeable people, and they tell me that an analysis from a sample of hair is not considered dependable unless it is backed up by tests of tissue and blood and other analysis — which he did not do (the coroner did, but they show no similar results). I am also told one lab may give different results than another lab in terms of heavy metals, and the proper method requires multiple tests before any results are released.
The lab Angelo used, if you can call it that, is an Internet site that farmed out the actual testing and then wrote horribly untrue things under the guise of “analysis.” It mentioned rat poison as a possible cause and claimed to be able to say that a third party murdered my beloved daughter.
To even mention that the heavy metals that were listed in his test are in rat poison, leading to articles suggesting Brittany ingested that or anything like it, is absurd. If she had, don’t you think it would have shown up in the coroner’s test of her blood and tissue? A reputable expert will tell you that what this lab did is an ethical violation of the highest order; to even pretend to be able to draw such conclusions on unreliable evidence is the real crime.
This report conveniently ignores what any good scientist will tell you: A hair sample can be affected by many outside factors, including hair dye, hair spray, prescription medications, foods, smoking the occasional cigarette and environmental factors. One cause we now know may have been toxic mold that was eventually discovered in that house — which may have been what really killed her.
We will never know for sure. However, we do know the Los Angeles County Coroner did extensive tests and found that she died of natural causes. And now she is a real living angel in heaven.
Angelo has also formed the Brittany Murphy Foundation, as if he is fit to carry on her memory. Like everything else Angelo and his collaborator Julia Davis have done, this is calculated to make them money and bring them the fame they desperately crave. They say they want to do a documentary and write a book, and this whole stunt is merely publicity to fuel their aspirations.
I can only imagine the horror that would be in that book and documentary, based on what has been said in Davis’ earlier work, The Terror Within. Davis and Angelo have told bald-faced lies in order to promote their products by falsely associating my daughter and son-in-law in their story.
Let me be clear: I am quite confident Brittany never cooperated with Julia Davis, never signed any statement in support of her, never met with her and barely knew she existed. Davis did try to contact Brittany through her agent, but all she got back was a letter from CAA — then Brittany’s talent agents — which we have, telling Davis that their client knew nothing about her claims and would not meet with her.
Davis’ grievances with the government agency she worked for may be real — and if so, I feel bad for her — but she has no right to drag my daughter’s memory into it to serve her agenda.
I am sorry to be so forthright in saying this, but the time has come to bring out into the open the lies Angelo and Davis have told now that Brittany can’t defend herself. They did it simply to promote their interests, their book, Davis’ documentary and career. The time has come for their false statements to be exposed and rebuked.
Angelo has shown he only wants to trade on Brittany’s life, career and good reputation — even at the cost of putting a cloud over her memory. His actions have hurt the people she actually lived with, loved and considered her dearest friends and family. I have heard from many of Brittany’s closest friends about the awful things said on the Internet or in the media about them when their only crime was to truly love Brittany. This has been done by people willing to perpetuate awful lies for their own personal aggrandizement and enrichment.
Angelo and Davis will do what they do, but I can no longer remain silent. I must speak the truth. I want my Brittany to be remembered as the darling person she was, for the giant talent she showed the world (and left behind in her movie and TV appearances) and for the friendships and loving relationships that really were part of her life.
She was my baby, and we stood together throughout Brittany’s life. Now I must stand up for her again. It is time for those who really knew and loved her to put those who want to exploit her on notice: Your lies will no longer be tolerated, and as long as I live will continue to be exposed.”
Sharon was ALWAYS the sole heir to Brittany’s fortune. Records show that she did in fact update her will after her marriage, but still intentionally left Simon out. This may explain why Simon took up with Sharon after Brittany’s death? By 2017, Angelo Bertolotti gave up the fight. Sharon refused to cooperate, and his health began to fail him. Dr. Wecht says that he thinks that Brittany’s death will not be cleared up in any way anytime soon, but that he did also review Simon’s autopsy and believes that he did in fact die of natural causes. Reports have later surfaced that mold may have been the cause, but the coroner’s office says there was no evidence of mold being the cause.
This is a really confusing and sad case.
We may never know what killed Brittany and Simon, but Angelo knows now.
I read a few articles about the case and Dr. Wecht has made statements saying that the black mold reported to have been investigated as a possible cause in Brittany and Simon’s death was never actually found in the home. He says he believes that Simon murdered Brittany by not taking her to a doctor, and then committed suicide by way of not getting help for himself when he became ill. He believes Sharon had nothing to do with either death.
