14 DAY TRIAL // After Brittany Murphy’s death, her grieving husband, Simon Monjack, and mother, Sharon Murphy, set up a charitable foundation that received donations for what it said was the support of arts and education in children. Over the weekend, TMZ broke the story that the foundation was not listed as a charitable one with the IRS and, hours later, a post on it announced that all donations received over the past month would be returned.
According to the celebrity gossip website / paparazzi agency, The Brittany Murphy Foundation made the claim that it was a non-profit charitable organization where people could make donations to help underprivileged children have a chance at a proper education. The problem was, as per TMZ, that neither Monjack nor Sharon Murphy had filed the necessary papers to have the foundation listed as a charity, therefore it was not one and had no right to solicit money.
“The foundation – launched by Brittany’s widower Simon Monjack and her mom Sharon Murphy – has been touted as a charity dedicated to arts education for children, and has been soliciting funds through a website since last month. TMZ has discovered, however, the foundation is not registered as a charity with the IRS or the state of California, as required by law. The California Secretary of State’s office told TMZ there are no records for The Brittany Murphy Foundation. The state Attorney General’s office also has no record of the organization as a nonprofit group – and the IRS says the foundation has not filed for a non-profit license,” TMZ wrote over the weekend.
Shortly afterwards, the official website of the foundation went down. At the same time, TMZ tried to get into contact with either of the founders of the organization but neither was available for comment. A few hours later, the site was back up, this time with a post saying all the money people have donated over the past month would be returned, at least until all the legal papers are in order. Also until then, The Brittany Murphy Foundation will function as a private organization.
“Dear Friends, we began the Brittany Murphy Foundation to honor Brittany’s wishes and to give her family, friends, and fans a way of keeping her legacy alive. In an effort to get the foundation off the ground quickly, we established it as a private foundation with plans to apply for non-profit status down the road. However, after some thought, we have decided instead to wait until we have our non-profit status approved before proceeding to insure that we can truly honor Brittany’s charitable desires. Any donations made up until this point will be returned until we have all our paperwork solidified,” Sharon Murphy says in the post.