Brittany Murphy’s reputation-challenged husband Simon Monjack revealed exclusively to the Daily Beast earlier this week that he was in the final stages of preparing a wrongful death suit against Warner Brothers for the tragic death of his wife. While it’s still unclear what caused the cardiac arrest of the 32-year old actress, Monjack claims it was brought on by stress when WB fired her from the currently in development “Happy Feet 2.” Of course, there are others who say the dozen or so painkillers, antidepressants and anxiety medications in her bedroom can’t be ignored either.
Well, a WB spokesperson has responded to Monjack in a very clear, very pointed statement:
Any claim that Warner Bros Pictures was somehow responsible for Brittany Murphy’s tragic death is demonstrably false, reprehensible, and defamatory. Despite press reports to the contrary, Warner Bros Pictures and Ms Murphy never entered into any deal for “Happy Feet 2”, and thus, there was not a contract to cancel.
With the ball now back in Monjack’s court and with the game looking pretty much decided, we hope he drops his plans to pursue this. While we didn’t get into the he said/she said of Monjack’s not quite sterling rep in Hollywood, its certainly not helping the perception that he’s a litigious gold digger by filing such a seemingly frivolous suit against a major studio. While Murphy wasn’t an icon, she was a talented actress who, in her very brief career, was lucky enough to be part of a small, solid number of very good films. She never complained or turned around and talked smack about the people she worked with (a lesson Katherine Heigl might want to learn) but kept her head down and worked. If Monjack wants to best serve his departed wife, he will let her rest in peace.