Simon Monjack, actress Brittany Murphy’s husband, died in his Los Angeles home Sunday night. Preliminary reports indicate that the 39-year-old Simon Monjack died of natural causes. Could someone have made a mistake? Natural causes? Nobody dies of natural causes in Hollywood. Where’s the drama in that?
No, when people like Simon Monjack die, there has to be a reason, a connection, extenuating circumstances, a backstory. It is Hollywood after all. And what would the cradle of modern American creativity be without its ability to create something from nothing?
Take, for instance, Brittany Murphy’s cause of death. Speculation ran rampant as soon as Brittany Murphy was found dead by her mother. It had to have been a drug overdose or something to do with an eating disorder. She was much too young to die of natural causes. Fingers were pointed at her husband, Simon Monjack, as the likely suspect for getting her hooked on drugs and keeping her supplied. Abuse of prescription medication was also suspected.
But the final autopsy report listed cause of death as pneumonia with contributing factors like acute anemia. Although preventable, Brittany Murphy had indeed died of natural causes.
Stepping outside the Murphy-Monjack family, rumors ran rampant as soon as actress Dixie Carter died in April. Her husband, Hal Holbrook, issued a short statement and the media immediately assumed he was hiding something about her death because of the paucity of information disclosed. Cause of death? Complications associated with endometrial cancer. Hal Holbrook and family had simply wanted privacy. Hollywood not only ignored the request, they took the scarcity of information to mean Carter’s family was attempting to hide something.
Since Brittany Murphy’s death was so sensationalized, the death of her husband will no doubt follow suit. Although police have stated that no weapons or illegal drugs were found, there will probably be suggestions made that Monjack had help in his death. So soon after his wife? Had to have been an overdose or something. Right?
And what about Sharon Murphy? She found both bodies. Surely Hollywood can find a connection there.
Simply dying of natural causes is too easy. There’s no story in it, behind it, stemming from it. And the timing of Simon Monjack’s death, just five month’s after Brittany Murphy’s, lends itself only too well to the romantically bent.
But dying of a broken heart would still be considered natural cause. Unless Simon Monjack died haunted by his dead wife’s ghost.
Still, nobody dies of natural causes in Hollywood. At least, not until the final autopsy report and the cause of death kills the story…
Of course it was natural causes! He died of a broken heart.