14 DAY TRIAL // Though toxicology results are still pending, Simon Monjack, the grieving husband of actress Brittany Murphy, seems to have already found out who is responsible for her shocking death of a heart attack at just 32. He tells The Daily Beast that he’s suing Warner Bros. for wrongful death as it had fired Murphy from “Happy Feet 2” just a couple of weeks before she passed away.
This, in turn, is telling him that the actress had died of a broken heart, having a heart attack because of the stress being fired placed her under. The movie studio used hearsay to let her go from the project and it had no reason to do so. Moreover, in firing her, Warner Bros. ruined Murphy’s self-esteem altogether and eventually ended her life, Monjack believes.
“‘They killed her,’ he told me. Although the Los Angeles County Coroner’s Office hasn’t released a final cause of death, Monjack and Brittany’s mother, Sharon, who also spoke to me, are convinced that the once-promising star died of a heart attack from the stress caused by Warner Brother’s canceling of a contract just two weeks before she died. Murphy was excited to have begun production on the sequel to the animated hit Happy Feet, but when she was fired by Warner Brothers, Monjack says, ‘She was devastated’,” Gerald Posner of The Daily Beast writes.
Before being fired from “Happy Feet 2,” Murphy had been in Puerto Rico shooting for “The Caller.” After reports of misbehavior and diva attitude on set, from both her and her husband who was in charge of her hair and makeup, she was replaced by former “Twilight” star Rachel Lefevre. Initially, Monjack told the media Murphy left “The Caller” after sitting down and having an amicable talk with studio bosses, but he’s changed his story now, claiming she was replaced by Lefevre who is by far a “hottest” star.
Be that as it may, Warner used these rumors of trouble on the set of “The Caller” and terminated her contract for “Happy Feet,” leaving her brokenhearted. The only problem is, according to Warner Bros., that the movie studio did not even have a deal with Murphy. “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,” Warner says in a statement to TMZ.