[insects chirping]
[distant siren wailing]
[siren wailing]
[dramatic music]
- [sobbing loudly]
♪ ♪
[monitor beeping]
[elevator bell dings]
♪ ♪
- This room is a personal favorite of mine.
Everything in here is original,
preserved in time.
You'll be joining some very distinguished company.
- I bet.
- Some of the first guests at the Riverview were
numerous celebrities
and movie stars.
- Like who?
I'm not at liberty to divulge their names,
but rest assured,
the names would impress you.
- I'm sure.
Thank you for the history lesson.
- You're welcome.
- Actress Brittany Murphy,
who began her career in the early 1990s
and became well-known for her roles
in "Girl, Interrupted," "Clueless," and "8 Mile,"
has died at the age of 32.
She was pronounced dead at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center
just after 10:00 a.m.
♪ ♪
- ♪ I had it all planned out ♪
♪ Before you met me ♪
♪ Was gonna leave early ♪
♪ So swiftly ♪
♪ Maybe in a fire or crash off a ravine ♪
♪ People would weep ♪
♪ How tragic, so early ♪
♪ I was gonna die young ♪
♪ Now I gotta wait for you, honey ♪
♪ I was gonna die young ♪
- Take three, mark.
- Thank you.
Good? Okay.
Here's something I just want to say,
'cause I want to make sure we get it in.
I know people always say, "I don't want blah, blah,
remembered for blah, blah, what happened to them."
But, like, all of us agree
that one of the most painful things about this,
other than losing a life way too soon
and for such egregiously wrong reasons,
is that Brittany was so wonderful.
Like, there was nobody else like her.
She wasn't a Hollywood girl.
The movie of her life is like-- who walks into a room
and almost every single person there
is thrilled that you're there and then knows
that when she leaves the room and goes home,
she's the same freaking person
in the movie of her life?
[light music]
- It's weird 'cause stuff happens,
and you don't really notice it while it's happening.
Life is sort of passing by.
[siren wailing]
[indistinct chatter over police radio]
- Media and paparazzi
surrounded Brittany Murphy's Hollywood Hills home
that she shared with her husband of nearly three years,
British screenwriter Simon Monjack.
The world is stunned by the loss
of the seemingly healthy, young actress.
- I got a call from my editor.
He said, "Brittany Murphy's died.
"Get over to her house immediately."
You know, "Get the scoop."
When I got there, I can remember, like, barely
having anywhere to park my car
because there were so many reporters and paparazzi
all just at the foot of her driveway,
waiting, hoping that maybe her husband would come out.
[camera shutter clicks]
I'd never heard of him before he married Brittany
and barely even after he married Brittany.
They weren't the Hollywood couple
that was photographed out at dinner all the time.
They were never out.
He was mysterious in the way of, like,
"Who are you?"
But we didn't know what happened.
All we knew is that this young
32-year-old Hollywood starlet
had suddenly died.
- It came across my newsfeed--
"Brittany Murphy dies at 32 years old."
And I was like, "What?"
- Today I'm going to be telling you guys
about a true crime story
that I am really interested in,
as well as doing my makeup.
- Could have Brittany Murphy's death been prevented?
Absolutely.
- She was dealing with an eating disorder.
- Everybody thought, like, "Did she overdose?"
- This shady business guy that Brittany married,
something freaky happened.
- [whispering] That could mean that she was being poisoned.
- The FBI was watching them.
- Is the house cursed?
- I called it. I knew she was murdered.
- Brittany Murphy-- what could have happened?
- Speculation's mounting about the sudden death
of actress Brittany Murphy.
Ed Winter is the assistant chief coroner.
- We're conducting an investigation
into the death of Brittany Murphy.
My name is Ed Winter.
I oversaw the high-profile celebrity deaths,
including Brittany Murphy's.
We responded to the residence, to her next of kin,
her husband, Simon, and Brittany's mother, Sharon.
Sharon was sitting on the couch,
and she'd cry a little bit, and then she'd stop,
and she'd talk with Simon or say something
and then start crying again.
Simon appeared to be somewhat under the influence,
just pacing around,
and he maybe wasn't totally coherent.
There were several little indicators
that just didn't feel right, you know?
You get that--the hair on the back of your neck stands up,
and it's like, "What?"
[eerie music]
They basically said that they were up late.
She had flu-like symptoms.
They'd been in Puerto Rico two weeks earlier.
And when they were there, she became ill.
In the morning, Brittany went in the bathroom,
and after a short time,
Sharon discovered her unresponsive
on the bathroom floor.
They carried her into the shower
and turned on cold water
to see if they could revive her.
There was a delay to start CPR.
What's going on? Why did it get that far?
And if she's sick, why didn't somebody
pick up the phone or make arrangements?
Come on, something isn't right.
We'll be doing an autopsy.
The final results will be
pending toxicology and further tests.
- The chatter among us was overdose.
I mean, it seemed like the only logical thing
for someone that young in Hollywood.
Brittany had changed physically noticeably.
She was much thinner.
We thought, "Well, she went too far."
[car horn blares]
- I kind of fucked it up. [sighs]
[whooshing]
- Good afternoon, everybody.
My name is Ryk Schoonhiem,
and here we are at the 27th annual
Metuchen Country Fair.
This is "Metuchen on the Air."
Excuse me? - Would you like a children's--
- Yes, I would like a children's perspective.
- Great.
- What is your name? - Brittany.
- Brittany, how you doing today, Brittany?
- Great, how are you? - Very good.
You want a job hosting a television show?
- Sure. - How about you interview
these people over here? - Okay, sure.
Hi, do you like the fair here today?
- Yeah. - What's your name?
- Carissa.
- Where are you from? - Edison.
- You're from Edison. Oh, my goodness.
How old are you? - 11.
- Why are you here at the fair today?
- 'Cause it's fun.
- Nice talking with you.
- Give us your name, and what school do you go to?
- [laughs] Hi, my name is Brittany Murphy,
and I go to Herbert Hoover Middle School.
[giggles]
Thank you.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
We're gonna be friends.
Okay?
- Grown-ups never stay friends with kids.
- I don't see any grown-ups around here.
- You raised her as a single mom?
- Yes, yeah.
- What happened to her dad?
- He was never around. It was just us.
- So she had no father growing up?
- No, not at all.
- Did she always want to be in show business?
- Yes, she started, you know,
in dance school and musical comedy classes
when she was little
because she always had so much energy,
and she just came out of me a show person.
[indistinct shouting]
- My name is Really Rosie!
♪ I'm Really Rosie ♪
- Well, I have a bunch of photos
of our production of "Really Rosie."
She was so spectacular in this show.
My name is John Menter,
and I was Brittany Murphy's
earliest acting coach/director.
We had an audition.
In walked Sharon and little Brittany Murphy.
They were an hour late, maybe even more so.
When she came in, you know, "My name is Brittany Murphy,"
and, you know, she handed us the head shot.
And they were like, "Can we still audition?"
We said, "Yeah, sure. Go on, you know, audition."
So she sang her song,
and it's that look towards the other people like,
"We have someone very rare here."
And the rest is history.
- How old are you? - I'm ten years old.
- Where's this all leading?
- Broadway or Hollywood. [laughs] Both.
First, I wanted to get into Broadway, then Hollywood.
And then I just want to do a bunch of things.
- This is a really cute picture of Britt.
She's waving to me.
- I'm Kelley Faulkner,
and I met Brittany when I was 11,
doing a play together in New Jersey.
- And I'm Kelly's mom, Marti Faulkner,
and Sharon and I became very good friends.
Lovely people.
I'm gonna tear up... [inhales deeply]
Because Brittany never said
an unkind word about anybody, ever.
She was very funny, really funny.
She made me laugh a lot.
- We just really loved each other fiercely.
She had a really naturally bright and bubbly personality,
and it was completely genuine.
One night, she got to the second verse
and just completely blanked and forgot the words.
She launched into a fully improvised dance break
with high kicks and pirouettes
and then just finished the song.
It really summed up
exactly who she was as a performer,
which was fearless and in the moment.
- A lot of people say, "Oh, I bet you
her mother pushed her into showbiz."
And I would say, "Absolutely not."
I really felt that it was something
that Brittany wanted to do.
Brittany definitely maxed out in New Jersey.
Sharon asked Brittany, you know,
"Is this something you really want to pursue?"
And Brittany said, yes, she did,
and then Sharon said, "Okay,
"I'm gonna leave my job here in New Jersey,
and we're gonna move to California."
[spacey music]
♪ ♪
[bell tolls]
- Family and friends of actress Brittany Murphy
arrived at a Los Angeles cemetery
for a private funeral.
A friend who eulogized the actress
said Murphy loved Christmas
and noted the irony of her being buried
on Christmas Eve.
♪ ♪
- We scheduled the funeral for a certain time
so it would be over and people wouldn't be
walking around in the dark.
But the lights of Burbank
started just to twinkle
ever so slightly,
and day turned to night.
There was a beauty to it.
♪ ♪
- I'm Sara Hammel,
and I was working in "People" magazine's
Los Angeles bureau when Brittany Murphy died.
My job was to find out what she'd been up to
in her last days, talk to people who knew her.
What could have gone wrong? What happened?
You would hear some different stories,
but the one story that remained consistent
was that Simon Monjack was bad for her.
[camera shutter clicking]
She first met him in 2006.
He was known as a writer.
He was always in the background,
and we were always sort of interested in Brittany Murphy,
but once they got married,
they were holed up in that house 24-7.
- So it was very interesting when Simon Monjack
came on to the scene
because nobody was really aware of him
until they were aware of him, right?
- Brittany, there's a little kid back here that--
- No.
- He seemed a lot older than her.
I don't want to use the Svengali phrase,
but it seemed more like
a control kind of issue.
- Last one, guys.
- All right. - That's it.
- This was a marriage between a fading starlet
and an unknown screenwriter.
- She was recently married, right?
- She was married about three years ago.
Yeah, Simon Monjack.
Now, the thing that's very strange about him, though,
is that he has said he doesn't want an autopsy.
- Simon did request that no autopsy be done.
And sometimes that's an indicator
that somebody doesn't want you to find out
what they had in their system.
And I explained to him,
"There's going to be an autopsy,
and we need to find out why she passed away."
♪ ♪
- We were waiting for the autopsy,
and you start to think, "Well, okay,
who gained from her dying?"
And then he's living in this house
with Brittany's mom's still.
[camera shutter clicking]
- There was a set of pictures that came out
taken by a photographer friend of mine
of Simon Monjack with Sharon Murphy.
It looked like parents grieving,
as opposed to a husband and his mother-in-law.
But it was creepy.
- Him and Sharon still lived in the house together.
So people suspected that Simon
may have had something to do
with Brittany's death.
- A 32-year-old woman
passes away suddenly,
and you don't want an autopsy done?
What is going on?
♪ ♪
- The amount of reporters and paparazzi
sort of dwindled off,
and we stayed.
We were told to stay.
Spent the night in my car.
It was almost 24-7.
And then-- I'll never forget this
because it was Christmas Day,
and I got a call early in the morning
from my boss, and he said,
"Go buy flowers
and bring them over to Brittany's house."
I brought flowers, buzzed the buzzer.
Simon answered. So I said, "Merry Christmas.
I'm just so sorry about Brittany."
I said, "My card's there if you want to talk,
but no pressure."
And drive off.
It wasn't even an hour later.
Get a call from an unknown number,
but I answered, and it's Simon. [chuckles]
And I'm like, "What?" Like, "Why are you calling me?"
I was kind of, like, shocked.
I said..."Hi."
And he said, "This is Amber, right?"
And I said, "Yeah." And he said, "Thank you.
I got your flowers."
And he was kind of silent for a minute.
He said, "You know, you're the only one I've called."
And I said, "Oh."
"And I've decided you're the only one
I want to talk to."
I had access to him now.
[camera shutter clicking]
[dramatic music]
- Many people in Hollywood are absolutely shocked
over Murphy's passing.
She began her career at an extremely young age,
starting with small roles in commercials and sitcoms.
[audience laughter]
- [laughing goofily]
- Brittany was successful immediately,
booking pilot after pilot.
I just couldn't believe how much work this girl got.
My name is Lisa Rieffel,
and I was friends with Brittany Murphy.
We were both childhood actors.
We both loved singing
and the same boys sometimes. [chuckles]
And got a lot of jobs together.
So this was from a party
celebrating us both getting pilots.
- My name is Chris Snyder, and I'm a manager,
and I was Brittany Murphy's first agent
in Los Angeles.
Brittany was 14
when she came into the offices.
TV was fun,
but Brittany wanted to be a movie star
with every fiber of her being.
She wanted to be in films.
- But, remember, Dorothy, you're not in Kansas anymore.
- My name's Amy Heckerling.
I'm the writer-director of "Clueless,"
which was the first movie that Brittany Murphy was in.
We saw a lot of people for the part of Tai.
And I felt like everybody was kind of acting it
as opposed to just feeling it.
And when Brittany came in, she was just genuine.
She just felt like a sweet girl
who kind of didn't fit in with the others
and was just trying and being nice
but, like, was lost in this world.
And that was exactly what I was looking for.
- And background.
- When we were shooting "Clueless,"
Brittany was 17, so just a kid.
It was a very wonderful group of people,
and they all started to have these friendships,
and she was younger than everybody.
And there was kind of a sweet, childish,
lost quality that she had
that just breaks your heart.
- When she got that part,
it was like the "Hallelujah Chorus."
And you're always happy to give people that news,
because you know it's about to change their whole life.
♪ ♪
- That's some bump you got there.
- Yeah. - Yeah?
You ready to go back out there?
- Yeah, I am. - All right.
You sure? Can you do this?
♪ Rolling with the homies ♪
- ♪ Rolling with the homies ♪
- Yeah, let's do it, you're ready.
- Put it in the Criterion Collection.
Put it in the Hall of Fame.
This is one of the greatest movies ever made,
and I'll fight anyone who disagrees.
You cannot be a teen girl and not love this movie.
You cannot be a teen girl and not love Brittany in it.
- Wow.
[upbeat music]
♪ ♪
- She just gets every cute line,
and she gets every cute little moment.
- You're a virgin who can't drive.
- One of the greatest lines ever written,
one of the greatest line deliveries ever.
- That was way harsh, Tai.
- "You're a virgin who can't drive"--
the way she delivers it just, like, gives you chills.
It's like, whoa.
I loved her performance.
She let her sweetness shine through.
So you got to see who she was and love her,
which was important.
- You know, you hear sometimes about the other girls
that they considered for Cher in "Clueless."
I've never heard anyone talk about anyone
who could have played Tai except for Brittney Murphy.
- [laughs]
- It's the launch of her career.
And if you don't like this movie,
you're probably a bad person with bad taste.
- It wasn't until I saw it,
sitting in the theater,
I felt like, "She's gonna be a star.
She is gonna be a huge star."
♪ ♪
[reporters shouting]
- Brittany Murphy.
- I don't think she was in school.
She might've been emancipated.
- She didn't have to go to school like normal kids.
They gave you the books.
You could not go for weeks on end
and just turn in your assignments.
- Most of your learning takes place on set with a tutor.
When you're working all the time
and you're not around kids a lot
and your only friends are other actors,
you miss a lot of things.
- You don't become as aware
of people and what they can do
and the petty stuff that people can do or lies--
all that little stuff that you work out
in junior high and high school.
So they kind of get caught into this vacuum
of not knowing who a good person is
and who a bad person is.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- How are you coping?
- You don't really cope.
You just kind of...
live this surreal life
and hope that one day it makes sense.
I'm gonna go home. - All right.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
♪ ♪
- I'm Roger Neal, the publicist
for Simon Monjack and Sharon Murphy,
post-Brittany's death.
So, about a month after Brittany passed away,
I received a phone call from Simon Monjack.
They needed a publicist 'cause there was
a lot going on in the press, a lot of rumors.
When I got the call to go meet with Simon and Sharon,
I went on the Internet and did a search.
So this shot here--
I wouldn't have them put in that position.
To me, that's not a typical son-in-law-mother-in-law pose
for a photo.
We're talking about tabloid-media fodder.
They had done some interviews
because "Larry King" is the one interview
that the world watches.
But watching that show, man, they--
Mm-mm. It wasn't good for them at all.
- You didn't want an autopsy at first?
- No, I didn't.
There was this woman who just lost a daughter.
It was such a shock.
This pristine body
that is curvy in all the right places...
- It's not like she was in a car accident.
- And with skin like silk.
And how could I say in front of her mother, "Cut her up"?
- When I watch it, I sort of, like--
It's like, "Oh, no."
It made you cringe watching some of it,
and she seemed a little out of it.
- You were living in the house?
- Sharon lived with us throughout the marriage.
- Yeah, I was-- - The three of you
lived together? - I was always there.
And my daughter and I lived together always.
- So what happened that day? - It was the three of us.
- That's why these rumors are so ludicrous.
- I actually saw part of it.
I had that question in my mind,
"Is this for real or is this bull?"
I was contacted by the driver
that was driving them that night,
who happened to be an LAPD officer
who moonlighted as a chauffeur.
And he said, "They got to the studio.
"They did this very tearful interview
in front of Larry King."
- Larry, we have clung to each other.
- It's been weeks.
- We cry day after day after day.
I lay, and I look at the ceiling.
My mother-in-law comes in with neuropathy, shaking,
needing to be held.
- The driver said that as soon as they walked out,
it seemed like
their whole interview was a hoax.
- I'll say this because I know you can't.
She said, "Mom, I'm dying, I love you."
- "Mom, I'm dying, I love you"?
She knew she was dying? - [sobs]
This was about an hour before, but--
- No, no, no, baby, this was--
You've forgotten time. - Oh, sweetheart, oh.
- Well, the takeaway for me from that interview
is Sharon yielded to Simon.
And when I met them in person, it was pretty much--
he was very much in control.
And, remember, it had been Sharon and Brittany
Brittany's entire life before Simon.
♪ ♪
- I've got an idea.
Let's do a makeover.
- [gasps] - No, no.
- Oh, come on, let us.
- Okay.
My name is Bruce Bibby.
I wrote under the pseudonym Ted Casablanca.
I think she knew that she had something different,
that Jersey edge.
Absolutely loved that about her,
but she was not a typical pretty girl.
And so many young women in Hollywood
are pressured enormously
to look like the typical pretty woman.
- So this is Brittany Murphy
in the year 2000
in "Interview" magazine.
"You know, a very important person in Hollywood
"said I wasn't fuckable enough.
"He said I was huggable but not fuckable,
"so I got these extensions put in my hair,
and that made a big difference."
Uh, yeah, welcome to Hollywood.
- This comment came back.
She was cute, but she wasn't fuckable,
and she didn't get this part.
And shortly after that, I saw her at a premiere,
and she had lost an inordinate amount of weight,
and she was dressing totally differently.
[synth music]
♪ ♪
- In my film, the character that Brittany played
gets a makeover,
and I kind of got the feeling
that there was a parallel in that.
They had decided, "Oh, this is what Hollywood accepts,
and so you're going to get that Hollywood makeover."
- Brittany Murphy was super cute.
But in Hollywood,
you have to be literally Gwyneth Paltrow.
- Do you ever take a look at the superstars?
You know what their thing is? Hair.
Gonna be a star, got to know how to fix your hair.
I was afraid to be a blonde, too,
but I had dreams about it,
which sounds extremely superficial, but...
it kept on coming back in my dreams
so I figured I had to make it come true in real life.
- It's clear she was trying
to become someone she wasn't.
Both her people are telling her this,
executives are telling her this.
- She lived in a time and worked in a time
that had a very mean-spirited and harsh view
of how you were supposed to look.
You're commodifying women's bodies,
and you're judging them, and it can lead
to absolute carnage on these young actresses.
- They're pushing the look.
She's sexy, she's got blonde hair,
got this anorexic body that is so stylish.
- Okay, here's Brittany saying, unprompted,
"I don't have an eating disorder."
It's like she knows she's going around
with a scarlet A
on her body for anorexia,
like so many women in Hollywood.
You know, it's like everyone knew it.
Everyone talked about it.
♪ ♪
- One day we were filming at Fox.
I was like, "Are you okay, honey?
"You know, I think the blonde is great,
"but was it your idea?
And your beautiful body is diminishing."
And she said, "That's what I've been told.
"If I wanted to be considered as a leading lady,
I needed to lose a lot of weight."
- And let me loose! [giggles]
Like a real star.
♪ ♪
- After that initial phone call on Christmas,
Simon suggested that we meet in person.
So we met for dinner
at Chateau Marmont.
It was the first time I'd ever met him.
I had talked to friends in the industry
who had told me some things about Simon
that were unsavory,
but it was my job to befriend him.
When I met him, he was nervous.
He was sweaty.
It was really awkward being around him
and the way that he talked about her.
He liked to take credit for her career.
"When she did this movie, didn't she look great?
"That's 'cause I told her to wear this,"
or, "I had them change this in wardrobe."
He's made himself the boss of that family.
He said, "I know how people see me.
"They think I'm controlling.
"They think I'm this. They think I'm that.
"The truth of the matter is we were soul mates.
"What it really was was this great Hollywood love story,
and no one wanted to see it that way."
I remember after I went to dinner with him,
I had quite a few of my colleagues
call me and say, "My God, you went to dinner with Simon?"
'Cause there'd already been reports of, like,
"Ooh, did Simon have something to do with this?"
But it was in the back of my mind that, like,
"Am I sitting with a murderer?
"Like, did he-- could he have killed his wife?
Did he kill his wife?"
♪ ♪
- The media, because of celebrities, they hound you.
We'd tell them what we could
but we wouldn't release cause of death
until the autopsy was done
and all the toxicology and tests came back.
♪ ♪
When there's a death investigation,
we don't need search warrants.
We can go on any property.
And so, when an investigator is at a home,
they'll check the medicine cabinets
and look for any medication.
We checked the nightstands.
On Simon's side of the nightstand,
we found approximately 90 prescription bottles
with several different names, which is highly unusual.
We also found prescription bottles in Brittany's name
and Lola Manilow,
possibly an alias.
- Do you fear that toxicology
might say an overdose of prescription medication?
Is that possible? both: No.
- During the investigation, I issued search warrants
to several of the pharmacies
where a lot of the prescriptions came from.
There were several prescriptions
from several doctors.
If it looks like they're getting
too many prescriptions under several doctors,
then they'll do the aliases
and have the doctors write the prescriptions
so that they can continue or enhance their addictions.
- Just give me the fucking Valium.
- They weren't sure whether he controlled her
and kept her on drugs.
There was definitely a pill problem with Simon.
Brittany's mother--
she seemed like she was on something as well.
♪ ♪
[indistinct chatter]
- This is Brittany!
I love Brittany! I love Brittany!
She's my good friend! I love my friend!
Let me kiss her!
- You're not going home or anything, are you?
- She's making me go home, and I want to stay.
- Kiki, you're going home now? You're going home?
- Kiki's going home and I'm going to--
I'm going to go home in a bit with Joel.
[tense music]
♪ ♪
- We're gonna do an introduction.
So if you'd tell me who you are and what you do
and your connection to Brittany.
- I don't know who I am.
Oh, you mean my name.
Chris Hanley.
- I'm Roberta Hanley.
- We first met Brittany
when we were shooting the movie "Freeway."
- Also, I think Brittany became friends
with a few of the actresses.
- Oh, well, Kirsten Dunst for sure.
- Kirsten Dunst, and it was like a little clique of girls
that were really up-and-coming,
and they all became friends.
- Brittany was in one of the jail scenes that we had and--
- She got the hardest role in the movie
because she played insanity.
- I was hoping that you could show Vanessa
around the craft shop later.
- I can't.
See, I'm on--
I'm on restriction.
- Later on, "Girl, interrupted,"
those kind of movies,
she usually got the dramatic roles
because of her particular point of view
on how to approach the drama,
which was never like any other actress.
- Get the fuck out, or I'm calling Valerie!
Valerie! - Yeah, yeah, why don't you--
why don't you call Valerie.
Let's call Valerie and ask her for some Colace
just like Suzie Q's got in her fucking hand.
- I don't take Valium.
- When she did "Girl, Interrupted,"
we were like, "Holy shit."
I thought she should've gotten an Oscar for that.
I'd never seen anything like it.
- Brittany was this raw nerve
exposed to the air,
like, you know, if you chip a tooth.
About a week before filming, I asked her to come in,
and Brittany did something interesting,
where she made the scene sort of intimate and quiet.
- Don't want to hear it. - All they want--
all they want is a number.
They want a seven-digit number.
- You want what they want.
- And when we shot the scene from the screen test
in the actual day of filming,
it became a much more volatile,
explosive version of that scene.
- You want what they want.
- They know that you know the number,
and they're gonna kill my little girl
if you don't tell me the number.
- Stop it. - What is it?
- I know that Brittany understood,
in the context, the music of the movie,
it had to be that in that moment.
- When she did "Spun," she had to go
neck and neck with Mickey Rourke.
- God damn it.
Don't start in
with your psycho bullshit anymore
around here, all right? - Mm-hmm.
- You want to go back to Las Vegas
with all them Gucci-wearing motherfuckers?
- You want me to go to Vegas?
- I don't give a fuck if you go back to Florida.
- A day doesn't go by
where it doesn't flow through my mind.
And this girl's yelling at him, and he's taking it.
And he's like, "I am a loser."
- I would rather be anywhere,
anywhere in the whole fucking world right now
other than this room waiting for you
to fucking blow up the whole goddamn place!
Fuck you! Fuck you!
Fuck you, motherfucker!
- She breaks the kingpin down
and crushes him, like, emotionally.
[rap music playing]
♪ ♪
- I met Brittany Murphy on the set of "8 Mile,"
and that was our first connection.
I showed up, and in my trailer,
there was, like, an envelope,
like, sealed, and it said "Taryn."
The nicest letter that anyone's ever written to me
just gushing about--
"I'm so happy that you're here on set.
"I think you're so amazing.
"I'm so happy to have another girl here.
I'm just so proud of you that you got the part."
She was like a butterfly.
Like, if you--like a butterfly you can't catch.
You know, you'd be like, "Brittany."
[imitates buzzing] Just buzzing around everywhere,
and it's just such a good actor but so sweet to me on that set.
- See what I mean?
- So I hear you're a dope rapper.
- That could be the other-- - I like that.
- So I hear you're a real dope rapper.
- So she was nervous.
I mean, that was a big role for her,
working across a huge artist.
It can start to put pressure on you,
to where you might just even fold.
I really liked the first time, like,
they make out in, like, the factory.
Like, she went, like, all the way.
She just had a lot of courage.
On "action," like, any type of inhibitions
just went away.
- Was there romance off the screen?
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure. - How did that go?
- Well, it went.
It came and went. [laughs]
- It's fascinating to know that
the onscreen chemistry also is going off the screen.
And, look, I might've been a little jealous at that one.
Like, "Is it--damn it!"
You know, like, Marshall's awesome, but--
No, I'm joking, but it was speculated.
After "8 Mile" she became the it girl
and I was thinking,
"This is what dreams are made of."
Like, she was up there.
[crowd cheering]
- You're gonna be great.
[spacey music]
♪ ♪
[bell tolls]
- Welcome to my house.
Now, to get into the house...
you have to put your thumb here.
[device beeps] And then...
it opens.
♪ ♪
- He actually said,
"Do you want to come to the house?"
I'm like, "Yeah, like, yeah."
And he even said, you know, "You'd have first access."
It was amazing, but it felt weird
for this grieving husband to be like,
"Let's show the world where Brittany died."
- Yeah, these are pictures I took of Brittany.
This was actually used at the funeral.
just thought it was a perfect theatrical photograph
of someone who is just taking their final bow.
- Their house-- it was so much security
that you're like, "Whoa, wait, why?"
He sort of alluded to, like, "We've been targeted,"
almost like a conspiracy theorist would.
Like, people in the government were watching them.
- Lots of Louis Vuitton and lots of Chanel, Gucci.
Actually, that's a really nice leather jacket.
I never saw her wear that.
Isn't that cute?
But there's just so much of it.
- I was a little bit surprised
because it wasn't what I was expecting.
When you think of Hollywood and people with lots of money,
you think of like a big, clean, modern house.
Eventually we went up to the master bedroom,
which had the bathroom where she was found.
- This is obviously the infamous bathroom,
which no one has managed to even come in and clean out yet.
This is the little doggy couch
where she actually fell.
She fell on Clara's chaise longue.
She was put on her side right here
next to the chaise lounge.
And then when the paramedics came in,
they pulled her through here into the...
Into--through the-- one of the closets
into the main room, so...
Yeah, you're the first people to ever see
the infamous bathroom.
And it's the first time I've come in here, actually.
- You don't use this bathroom anymore?
- No, no, I don't use it at all.
[stammering] Yeah, it's shocking.
[dark music]
- It was the first time I met Sharon.
She acted like he was in control.
Like, she acted submissive with him,
which I noticed,
and it struck a chord.
What happens when no one's here?
Or--or how do they act,
you know, when no one's here?
Because I remember going into the house,
and the master bedroom bed was all ruffled,
a mess, like, both sides.
And I was like, "Well, that's weird because Brittany's gone."
And it just--like, in a way that you could tell
two people had been in that bed, recently.
And I said something to him.
And he said, "Oh, well, Sharon and I--
"Sharon crawls in with me sometimes,
and we just cry."
And you're like, "That's weird."
Like, it is weird.
- She's told the coroner
that her and Simon have been sharing a bed
to comfort each other after the death of Brittany.
Oh, hell, no.
That is so gro--
like, it's so creepy and so gross.
- I encountered a woman who was scared,
who was distraught, who was heartbroken,
who had not really grieved her daughter.
But it was absurd,
completely absurd to even think that Sharon and her son-in-law
were anything but mother-in-law and son-in-law.
She loved him like a son.
There was nothing like what had been speculated.
- Another thing that was strange
was Brittany left everything in her will to her mother.
- You were the beneficiary of the entire state.
Was it a sizable estate?
- We haven't even begun to add it up.
- I have no idea. I really don't--
- I'm just asking. - And I'm just telling you--
we're not doing math.
We're eating, we're living, I'm paying the bills.
They haven't even looked at Brittany's estate yet.
- He didn't have any work going,
and he wasn't producing anything or writing anything.
But now he's kind of in a financial position
where he doesn't have control over any of her money.
Sharon has all the money.
- His job was Brittany Murphy,
so he had to think of ways to make money.
- Where do you two go from here?
You go back East? - I'm going where--
[both laugh]
We're glued. We need each other.
- We have a job to do.
It's called the Brittany Murphy Foundation.
For young people, for education,
for things like what's going on in Haiti.
[dramatic music]
- In the weeks after she died,
I couldn't process it.
So, within a few days, I think either I reached out
to the family or they reached out to--
I forget which, 'cause it was a kind of a blur.
But I remember I said, "Let me put together
a compilation video, like a memorial video."
[indistinct chatter]
I remember I was in the middle of editing
this memorial video,
email arrived with an invitation,
and it talked about a contribution
to the Brittany Murphy Foundation--
a cash amount that was requested
of several thousand dollars or something,
and I kept thinking, "Why would you do that?"
- Simon comes out and tells the world
that he started a foundation and that he is going to
charge friends and family to come to this memorial.
It was just viewed as tacky and money-grubbing.
- I remember having a really negative reaction to it.
And I called a few people, and they agreed.
I think within, like, literally, within hours,
some of the press had picked up on it,
and there was major pushback.
And not a surprise, within a few days,
the whole thing evaporated, and there never was a memorial.
- The world could see that this man was now trying
to profit off of his wife's death
in a really bizarre way.
- He was just kind of, like, a scammy guy.
He was a little scammer.
- You go from Ashton Kutcher to Simon Monjack,
and there's some--
there's some questions there.
[camera shutters clicking, reporters clamoring]
- We both liked the same boy at one point.
She got him, though.
- [laughs] - Thanks.
- There was some flirtation going on,
and then I showed up to some party,
and he's like, "Yeah, that's my new girlfriend, Brittany."
[laughs] It's like, "Oh, cool."
[screaming]
- At the time, for women,
that was not a lot of opportunities.
There could be rom-coms
focused on a female audience of, like,
some amazing romance that has some funny stuff
and weird beginnings or whatever.
I don't know what the pattern is.
They were trying to stick her into that for a while.
And, you know, her and Ashton seemed cute.
- Ashton and Brittany,
from pretty early on,
even before they were romantically linked,
there was just a chemistry to them,
comedically, physically, and on-screen.
And the fact that that carried off-screen
fed into a narrative
that certainly didn't hurt the movie.
[reporters clamoring]
- In a way, "Just Married" is the height
of her as a movie star.
It makes just over $100 million,
and she is dating Ashton Kutcher
at the time that they're promoting it.
That's her being an it girl.
- Star of "Just Married." - With Brittany Murphy.
- Which is your new girlfriend.
She got to be big from "Clueless,"
but can you believe she was the ugly chick in "Clueless"?
But she was a fat, ugly chick.
She tried to transform herself.
What are you talking about?
I don't mean to be hard on your girlfriend, but she seems
like she's been around the block a couple of times.
- You know what? I think she's had, like,
three boyfriends ever. - Oh, really?
You better wear a condom. She's been with Eminem.
- Oh, stop it. What are you saying?
- I'm just saying, who knows what he's been up to?
When you saw the movie "Clueless,"
did you ever think you'd be banging her?
- Yeah, but you know what they always do
with the ugly girl in the movie?
It's always, like, a pretty girl
that they, like, do down. - It's true.
- But she was a fat, ugly chick.
- She wasn't fat. Howard--
- What are you talking about?
- Those people are complicit.
All of the people who wrote about her
and talked about her and made the headline
about this gorgeous--
she wasn't even, like, in society's terms, fat.
She was, like, perfectly sized.
And then she goes, "Okay," and loses the weight,
and we're not sure if it was healthy or not
and then still after her.
It's like, leave women alone.
Let her do her damn job. We don't do this to men.
[indistinct shouting]
- I read everything that is written about me.
"All the bad things that are said and all the bad reports.
"I am not and never have been anorexic or bulimic.
"Also, Ashton didn't break up with me.
It was mutual." - There's a price to pay
for being a celebrity, for sure.
I mean, if you start out wanting to be an artist
and then you find out you're a celebrity,
it's not always what you think it's gonna be.
It can take a toll on everything.
It can take a toll on your health
and on your relationships.
- Do you remember when she broke up with Ashton?
- Mm-hmm. - Them dating?
- Mm-hmm.
I don't want to talk about that.
Who cares? Just a breakup.
- I know that there were situations
that left her heartbroken.
She must have been, like, searching for something
that wasn't coming through or wasn't being realistic
in the sort of Hollywood universe.
♪ ♪
- I think as human beings, we second-guess ourselves,
and we wonder, and we also get used to habits and--
and depending on certain people
that may be unhealthy for your life.
And you don't realize it at the time,
but once you're free of them, then you realize
there's a whole universe out there,
and you feel like a complete new person again.
[indistinct chatter]
- Brittany Murphy had dated around in a normal way
for someone in their 20s.
Ashton Kutcher told a source he had never met anyone
who wanted to get married so badly.
She was ready to settle down.
She got engaged to an older man.
That did not work out.
She dated someone who worked on the crew.
He was sort of a younger, hot guy
that was around the same age as her
and they got engaged as well.
She broke up with him just before she stopped
working on "Ramen Girl" in Tokyo.
- I thought it was so brave coming to Tokyo,
but I'm a complete mess.
[crying] I'm so alone.
- She landed back in L.A.,
and she was single,
and she had a meeting set up with Simon Monjack,
who was known as a writer and a director as well.
So she went and took this meeting.
From that day on, basically they were inseparable.
She was ready.
This Simon Monjack seemed to also want to settle down,
and I think they came to those terms pretty quickly,
where they were both serious.
So that's where Brittany was when she met Simon.
- So stop living your life
like you're in some kind of a movie.
- Excuse me? - Stop trying to cast
your true love instead of just meeting him.
Love isn't always a lightning bolt, you know?
Maybe true love is a decision
to take a chance with somebody.
Maybe love isn't something that happens to you.
Maybe it's something you have to choose.
- So what do I do? - Well, you could start
by putting all of those fantasies of true love
where they belong--
into a work of fiction.
[indistinct chatter]
- I think she had not a great track record
with men who cared about her.
And she was a romantic.
She really wanted to find a guy
who loved her, and...
I really wonder if she thought she had found that in Simon.
Personally, I hope she had so she had that peace.
I think it's crystal clear
Simon was interested in Simon,
not in Brittany.
- She wanted to marry him.
And I said, "Honey, it's not been long enough."
I think we were all sort of saying the same thing,
except for Sharon.
I think Sharon was for the marriage.
- Sharon raised Brittany as a single mom,
and Simon became the man of the house.
Sharon and Brittany had blind faith.
If Simon said, "We have to do this,"
there was no question.
They did it.
- Her father left when she was quite young,
and there was definitely an issue there.
She was in search of a father figure,
somebody who would take care of her and her mom.
Simon gave her so much attention,
and he said that he was a billionaire.
- The transition that Brittany made
was parallel with the transition that Sharon made.
From a very focused, caring, strong mom
to someone who seemed hypnotized.
We all were scared and freaked out.
Like, who was this guy?
And what was happening?
♪ ♪
[bell tolls]
- The coroner's office says Murphy's autopsy is complete,
and results from toxicology and tissue tests
will help in determining the official cause of death.
- I'm Dr. Lisa Scheinin,
deputy medical examiner,
also known as a forensic pathologist,
and I did the autopsy on Brittany Murphy.
I love puzzles.
I always do puzzles every day.
And to me, an autopsy is just another puzzle to solve.
[dramatic music]
One of the things I did was a blood count.
Hemoglobin is the compound inside the red blood cells
that carries the oxygen.
Her hemoglobin was 3.0.
The normal is 12 to 15 1/2.
So all of that was saying that this is a very anemic person.
If she had had this test, let's say,
a week or two before dying
and they had a result like this,
any decent doctor would have her in the ER,
hooked up to a transfusion as quick as they possibly could
because this is a life-threatening situation.
♪ ♪
We do a very quick and easy test
to see if the lungs float in water or not.
They're supposed to float in water
because they're supposed to be filled with air.
So you just fill a bucket with water.
You take a little section of the lung,
dump it in the water, see if it floats.
We took a section from every lobe of the lung,
three of them sank.
So this tells us we've got a severe pneumonia going on.
This was not something
that she just got a day or so before.
She was walking around with this for some time.
The third thing was the toxicology test.
She had no evidence of alcohol
or any drugs of abuse in her system.
She had all prescription
and over-the-counter medications.
The anemia in itself would've been fatal,
even without the pneumonia.
The pneumonia was fatal.
And then you're adding this to the equation.
This could be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
In the end, I called the main cause of death pneumonia
and then contributory factors--
I put the iron deficiency anemia.
She probably had her resistance lowered
because of the very severe anemia,
then this pneumonia comes along,
and it tips the scales.
If she had gotten to a hospital early enough,
you can detect a pneumonia on the chest X-ray.
It's very easy to do.
They could have possibly started treatment.
But she would've had a chance.
♪ ♪
- You know, a healthy, young person
doesn't die of pneumonia.
I don't understand.
I--that doesn't-- the whole thing--
that answer didn't really satisfy me.
- Usually when an autopsy comes out,
somebody passes away,
the coroner says this is how this person died,
and that's the end of the story.
In this particular case,
it wasn't the end of the story.
There were more unanswered questions
after the autopsy came out
than there were answered questions.
- It says her cause of death was pneumonia.
Pneumonia, pneumonia, pneumonia?
- She was a celebrity. She was very affluent.
She had money. She had the means.
- Again, I would've took my wife to the hospital.
- You knew that she'd been sick for a long time.
Why didn't you take her to the doctor?
- Was there anything out of the ordinary
with her in the days or weeks or months prior to her death?
Sharon, anything? - No.
She was--
We had--all had a little bit of a...
upper respiratory, um, flu
'cause we were traveling.
She had it the least of the three of us.
- She had a little bit of laryngitis.
- Laryngitis, yes.
- That was the only thing, and she--
Other than that, she was,
you know, perfectly healthy and well.
- Something made her sick,
and I did get the feeling that he knew.
- I think that Simon realized that I wasn't stupid.
He did his best to just kind of stay low profile.
- It was believed that he contributed to her death
in at least some way.
So, you know, you start backwards.
You start with Brittany.
♪ ♪
And you say, "Okay.
"Something horrible went on here.
Like, so who is this guy?"
- ♪ I'll never tell ♪
- A healthy 32-year-old doesn't just die.
- ♪ I'll never tell ♪
- I was gonna find out his lies
and some of the stuff he'd been doing,
some of his past history.
- ♪ I'll never tell ♪
- Who was this guy, and what was happening?
- ♪ I'll never tell ♪
Any of you.
♪ Any of you ♪
♪ ♪
[indistinct chatter]
- Can you guys just tell me
who was Simon Monjack?
[sinister music]
♪ ♪