Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Simon Monjack, Husband of the Late Brittany Murphy, Found Dead

Just nine days before his death Sunday night in his Hollywood Hills home, Simon Monjack, 40, who wed the late actress Brittany Murphy in a Jewish ceremony, was making hopeful future plans. The “Factory Girl” producer planned to go on a European vacation with Sharon Murphy, Brittany’s mother. The two had become core pillars of support for each other in the five months since Murphy’s untimely death, and planned begin a new book project together.

But, according to People magazine, spokesman Roger Neal said Monjack was in ill health. “Simon needed a [heart] bypass,” Neal, who also represents Sharon Murphy and the Brittany Murphy Foundation, said. “I was told he needed a bypass, and I said to him, ‘Simon, you have so much going on, let’s keep you healthy.’ I said, ‘You want to be healthy. Don’t you?’ He said yes, but he said, ‘The bypass can wait.’ “

In January, Monjack’s mother, Linda, told People that her son had suffered “a slight heart attack” a week before Murphy’s death.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Sharon discovered Monjack unresponsive in the home they share late Sunday night and proceeded to call 911.

Prescription drugs were said to have been found at the scene, but it was deemed Monjack died of natural causes, pending a toxicology report Tuesday.

Sharon Murphy and Monjack had been in the process of arranging a party to launch the Brittany Murphy Foundation in September, according to People.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.

If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.

Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism. 

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.