Kriti Mehrotra
‘Brittany Murphy: An ID Mystery’ showcases the enigmatic surroundings of the life, career, and death of the Hollywood superstar who passed away at the age of just 32. Brittany’s official autopsy report claims her death to be from natural causes. But the fact that she was in the entertainment industry and scandals relating to drugs and disease followed her almost everywhere, rumors claim that foul play was involved in her passing. The tittle-tattle only rose higher when her husband, Simon Monjack, died just months after she did.
Who Was Simon Monjack?
Simon Monjack, a screenwriter, director, producer, and make-up artist, was born in Hillingdon, Middlesex, England, to a Jewish family on March 9, 1970. He grew up in Bourne End, Buckinghamshire, attending Juniper Hill School, Flackwell Heath, and then finally graduating from the Royal Grammar School (now Academy) in High Wycombe. Since Simon had an affinity for the entertainment industry and wanted to do something creative for his career, he moved to America to try his luck in Hollywood, which worked out tremendously for him.
Simon Monjack directed, produced, and wrote the 2001 movie ‘Two Days, Nine Lives’ and he has a make-up credit in the 2010 movie ‘Abandoned’ for Brittany Murphy. He also has a writer credit in the 2006 biographical film ‘Factory Girl’ about actress and model Edie Sedgwick, but the director of it publicly claimed that Simon had nothing to do with the movie and that the comments he made about the actual writers stealing the script from him were false. Simon denied all these allegations, maintaining that he wrote the story for the film himself.
How Did Simon Monjack Die?
In November of 2009, when Simon Monjack was in Puerto Rico with Brittany and his mother-in-law Sharon Murphy, he contracted Staphylococcus, which affected his overall health in a way that he could have never imagined. In December 2009, about a week before Brittany died, he even suffered from and survived a minor heart attack. Then, in January, Simon’s mother, Linda Monjack, told People that his condition was not good, revealing, “The doctors are carrying out tests. On whether he has a heart problem, it is not really for me to say, you must ask him, but yes, there have been health problems in the past.”
Fast forward a few months, and it was on May 23, 2010, five months after his wife’s passing, that Simon was found dead in his residential home in Los Angeles, which he had previously shared with Brittany. That day, at around 9:20 p.m., Sharon came to check up on her son-in-law, only to discover that he was unconscious in the master bedroom. She immediately called 911, and the Los Angeles Fire Department, along with a few paramedics, arrived at the scene soon after. They attempted to resuscitate him and get him to respond, but when all attempts failed, at 9:45 p.m., Simon Monjack was pronounced dead at his home.
According to reports, The Los Angeles Assistant Chief Coroner revealed that Simon had traces of some prescription drugs in his system, but neither that nor heart disease contributed to his death. He said it was all under natural circumstances, and Simon’s autopsy report reiterated that, determining his cause of death to be by acute pneumonia and severe anemia, nearly the same as his late wife’s, Brittany Murphy’s. Today, they are both buried next to each other at the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Hollywood Hills, Los Angeles.
Read More: How Did Brittany Murphy Die?
