![]() ![]() At times, Brittany turned to me as a father figure, and we talked about her life and career. Brittany and her mother became part of our extended family in those years, often sharing dinners, holidays and birthdays. She had become close friends with my daughter, who was also an actress and singer. I first met Brittany in 1992 in L.A., when she was 14. STORY: Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Against Brittany Murphy Coroner We’re going to stay in it.’ ”Īs it turned out, it was where Brittany and Simon were to die, in surprisingly similar ways, only five months apart. We have our house, a 10,000-square-foot home. “Every time we would drive up Sunset, Brit would say, ‘Please, can we stay at the Beverly Hills Hotel?’ I’d say: ‘Honey, you’ve got to be realistic. “She absolutely hated the Rising Glen house,” Simon told me in January 2010. They used flashlights when it went dark, afraid to light candles near the wheezing oxygen machine Simon relied on to ease his sleep apnea, bouts of asthma and frequent respiratory infections. The electric power kept going out, and the backup generator failed. She wanted to start fresh in 2010 in New York, where they could start a family, Simon would find work as a screenwriter and director and she’d star in independent films that would revive her career.That Saturday night was chilly and windy. Brittany always felt the tri-level Mediterranean at the top of Rising Glen Road was unlucky. They discussed selling the big house Brittany had purchased in 2003 for $3.9 million, fully furnished, from Britney Spears, who had lived there with Justin Timberlake. While Brittany dozed on the big bed beside him after midnight, Simon and Sharon talked about the practical aspects of their plan to move to New York. Simon joked that his wife’s bathroom was “her comfort zone.” He called it the “Brittany-sized room,” reflecting her diminutive 5-foot-2 stature, and recalled how she spent hours sampling the cosmetics and perfumes that crowded every inch of counter space, critically studying her body image, sometimes singing to herself or writing bits of poetry in a journal, listening to music or paging through magazines from which she would tear out pages with clothes she just had to have. Although weakened by anemia and gasping for breath from her own ailments, Brittany held his 300-pound body down, using a spoon to keep him from swallowing his tongue. When he had a seizure, his arms and legs flailing on the big four-poster bed, Brittany would rush to his side. For nearly a year, the England native had been having seizures and a month earlier suffered an apparent heart attack. Even though she didn’t feel well herself, Brittany was there to care for her mother, Sharon Murphy, a breast cancer survivor suffering debilitating neuropathy, and her ailing husband of three years, 39-year-old Simon Monjack. ![]()
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