Diksha Sundriyal
In Steven Soderbergh’s ‘Erin Brockovich,’ Julia Roberts plays the titular role and takes on a billionaire corporation to get justice for the townspeople whose lives were ruined by them. All this work takes a toll on Erin, who is a single mother of three young children who feel increasingly distant from her as she spends more and more of her time at the office. It is through the help of George, her boyfriend, that she can afford to be carefree about her children and dedicate herself to the good fight against the Goliaths to her David. The film ends when the case ends, but what happened to Erin and George (real name Jorg Halaby) after that?
Erin and Jorg’s Relationship Didn’t Last Long
Erin Brockovich and Jorg Halaby met in a bar called Sagebrush Cantina in Calabasas. She’d come to southern California with her children, who were spending some time with their father. Erin was sitting alone in the bar and was about to have her drink when Jorg approached her and revealed that someone had slipped a mickey in her drink. He tipped the drink sideways and showed her a tablet on the bottom of the glass. He then offered to buy her a good beer.
This encounter was enough to charm Erin, who later moved to LA after she got hit by a car. It was Halaby who introduced her to Jim Vititoe of Masry and Vititoe, where Erin later got a job and uncovered the truth about PG&E’s actions. While Erin was on the case, doggedly pursuing all the leads, she entrusted Jorg with her kids. Calling him “a very unique man,” she recalled that he was great with her children, and without him, she wouldn’t have been able to be so dedicated to her work on Hinkley.
Much like Aaron Eckhart in the movie, Jorg was a biker with a ponytail. Erin has described their relationship as “fun and unique,” saying that once she got involved with Hinkley, she often forgot about him. The film presents that dynamic between them pretty accurately, but while the movie ends with them reuniting, in real life, Erin and Jorg broke up soon after, and it was she who kicked him out. The break-up was hard on Jorg, who filed for a $3 million palimony suit against her. She settled it, paying him $40,000 on top of a $20,000 custom-built Harley-Davidson motorbike. But this wasn’t the last she’d see of him.
In 2000, Jorg and Erin’s first husband, Shawn Brown, were arrested for trying to extort her. They’d joined forces in blackmailing her to give $310,000. If she didn’t, they would tell the press about what a bad mother she was and that she was having an affair with Ed Masry. Erin did not take their threats lightly and went straight to the cops, with whose help a sting operation was executed that got both Brown and Jorg arrested, along with their lawyer, who was fined $10,000 and disbarred for life after serving six months in prison. The charges against Erin’s exes were dropped. Erin later revealed that the extortion really “pissed her off,” and she was shocked by their “twisted sense of entitlement.”
By the time the film about Erin, starring Julia Roberts, came out, she was already with the man who she’d later marry. She revealed that Jorg Halaby passed away sometime after the lawsuit debacle, reportedly due to a brain tumor. Despite his actions to sabotage her, Erin Brockovich still remembers Jorg for his love and support at that time in her life and how it helped turn things around for her, even though the case itself became the reason that pulled them apart and resulted in their break up.
Read More: Where Are Erin Brockovich’s Kids Now?
