I’m not really sure how I feel about Brittany Murphy’s widower, Simon Monjack. He’s accused of all sorts of wrongdoings and has been sued multiple times for bad debts and business deals gone wrong. It’s obvious that the guy loved Brittany, and I truly doubt that he had anything to do with her tragic death late last year at the age of 32. Still, the more Monjack talks the guiltier he looks. Monjack seems to have an excuse for everything and in this recent interview with The Daily Beast he makes a lot of suspicious, over-the-top statements about how he bought Brittany a lot of luxury goods and how he was paying for everything. The guy was unemployed, he has only 2 credits on IMDB, and was being sued for not paying a credit card and for nonpayment of rent (among other things). He said he made millions from his “photography… a wonderful hobby that I hope to take up as a career.” So he made all that money from photography and still considers it a hobby? He never says outright that he was supporting Brittany, but he insinuates it, and that’s sketchy. Again, I really don’t believe he had a hand in Brittany’s demise, but I do get a whiff of con man from him.

Plus, Monjack is suing Warner Brothers for the wrongful death of his wife. Brittany was fired from a voice role in the Happy Feet sequel just two weeks before she died. As far as I can find out, there’s no official cause of death yet so isn’t it premature to sue for wrongful death? Brittany had a heart condition, mitral valve prolapse, and hypoglycemia. (Not diabetes as has been reported.) She suffered from either the flu or a bad cold before she died. The way this guy is defending himself, sharing sexy pictures of Brittany he took, and suing Warner Brothers definitely makes it seem like he’s not on the up and up. Here are some highlights from The Daily Beast, where you can read more at the source:

Monjack is suing Warner Brothers for canning Brittany from Happy Feet 2
The Daily Beast has learned that Simon Monjack, the much-maligned husband of Brittany Murphy, is only days away from filing a wrongful-death action against Warner Brothers, claiming that the studio is responsible for the unexpected death of the 32-year-old actress last December. “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.”

On the rumors that he was drunk on set
“Every story needs a villain, and everyone has decided it is me,” Monjack says. “The reports about the Puerto Rican set are fantasy. I was never, ever drunk there. What I did do was demand they follow union rules and after she had worked 12-hour days, six days a week, that she get the breaks she was entitled to. I was ‘difficult’ because I was the enforcer to protect Brittany. She was far too nice to stand up to directors and producers who wanted her to work to exhaustion.”

On his bad debts
He says he had earned a doctorate from UCLA in philosophical aesthetics, specializing in deconstructionism and post-expressionism. He also boasts that he made a small fortune in trading currencies and having the good luck of buying over 100 paintings from a group of then-unknown British artists, including Damien Hirst, Sarah Lucas, and Michael Yandy, among others. Although Monjack was described invariably in the press after Brittany’s death as a writer, producer, and director of tiny films, he says that was never how he earned his money. “My photography, it’s a wonderful hobby that I hope to take up as a career.”

What about the charges about him? Litigious? “I am tough. I litigate when somebody does something wrong to me. That’s one of the reasons I make enemies.”

Did he owe a bank half a million? “Yes, I had guaranteed a person’s overdraft, and they ran up $500,000, and I paid it.”

What of actress Jaime Pressly, who says that after Brittany married, the two actresses stopped speaking? “She was never even a friend of Brittany, and she had never met me. Not once.”

On his airplane illness
The rumors that his November 29 hospital admission, right after he stepped off a plane, was drug-related? “It was a mild heart attack. Nothing to do with drugs. But why should facts get in the way of a good story?”

On the charges that he sued his way to a Factory Girl credit: That guy is jealous!
And the strong charges by Factory Girl director George Hickenlooper, who said that Monjack was “a con man and a bad guy” who had “sued his way onto the project for a title.” “Hickenlooper is a liar. I sued my way into credit over plagiarism. He’s a hack who’s never grossed over a few million on a movie. He lives in some awful flat in Hollywood, and I drive three cars and had a gorgeous wife. Failure breeds jealously.”

On how he bought Brittany millions in designer goods
“I spent over a million on her engagement rings,” he told me. “And probably $3 million on clothes.”
“$3.5 million,” interrupts Sharon, standing nearby and listening to the conversation.

“When Brittany died, she had 60 pieces of unworn Louis Vuitton. The dog had Louis Vuitton. This was all me. We kept our money separate. When I took Brittany out shopping, I paid for everything.” Their sprawling, multimillion dollar home, where they lived together with Sharon, was his.

On how Brittany was suffering when he met her
“Brittany’s films had grossed $100 million before she met me,” he says. “But her career had ended before then.” Her acclaimed roles in Clueless (1995) and Girl, Interrupted (1999) were years before Monjack arrived. A performance that many insiders thought might revive her career, Don’t Say a Word, had the bad luck of being released the week of the 9/11 attacks. “She had gone through four or five agents by the time we met,” Monjack says, “and she had made a lot of indies that went straight to video. She hadn’t earned millions in years, and when we met she was struggling financially, from a series of bad investments. She trusted some people who she shouldn’t have. There are people in Hollywood living off of young successful boys and girls and getting them to invest in things they shouldn’t.”

[From The Daily Beast]

So if the sprawling Beverly Hills home was his, why were pretty reliable outlets like TMZ reporting that it was in Brittany’s name and that she left everything to her mom? There were also stories that Brittany was broke when she died and owed more than her home was worth.

Something doesn’t add up here. I was ready to give the guy the benefit of the doubt until he added all that crap about how he spent millions on designer clothes for Brittany and how the guy who called him a con man was just jealous. He talks just like a con man.

Brittany Murphy and Simon Monjack are shown in 2007 and 2008. Credit: WENN.com