14 DAY TRIAL // While tragic, the death of Julia Roberts' half-sister over the weekend also raises some serious issues from inside the estranged family. It has already emerged that the actress and her half-sister weren't on the best of terms, but now it's also being said that Roberts was afraid Motes would expose sensitive stories about her to the press.
Julia's fear was based on the fact that Nancy Motes had become cash-strapped in later years and thus in need of the money the tabloids were throwing at her to tell on her sister. Page Six reports that her fears might have been well-founded.
During the last months of her life, Motes did undergo a smear campaign against her more famous sister. Apart from thrashing her on her Twitter account, she also blasted Roberts back in August in the British newspaper The Sun by saying “she would tell me I was ‘definitely overweight’ . . . in a not so nice manner.”
A “mortified” Roberts began distancing herself even more from Motes as a result of those statements. The deceased sister wasn't even sure that Julia would come to her May wedding, as she also didn't approve of Motes' fiancé.
Roberts had always picked on Motes for her weight, even when she first came out to Hollywood, seeking an acting career like that of her famous sister, but Roberts wasn't supportive, “Julia did not want to see me go down that path, mostly because I was overweight,” Motes said in the same interview.
Nancy Motes was found dead by her fiancé on Sunday, in a Los Angeles apartment where she was pet-sitting for the owners. Her lifeless body was found in a bathtub full of water, surrounded by non-prescription and prescription medication.
The police are treating the matter as a suicidal drug overdose.