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It's been 10 years since Brittany Murphy's sudden death at 32.
By Amy Lamare — Written on Dec 22, 2019
It's hard to believe it has been 10 years since Brittany Murphy's tragic and sudden passing at 32. On December 20, 2009, at 8 am, the Los Angeles Fire Department responded to a medical emergency at the home of Murphy and her husband Simon Monjack. She collapsed in a bathroom. Firefighters attempted to revive her on the scene. She was transported to the hospital where she went into cardiac arrest and died at 10:04 am. (Her husband, Simon Monjack, would go on to die five months later, from "natural causes," though their deaths were both eerily similar and sparked much speculation and theories, one of which included mold poisoning.) Now, Murphy's sister is speaking out about her famous sibling and her death ten years after the fact. Who is Brittany Murphy's sister, Pia Jo Reynolds?
Brittany Murphy was born in Atlanta to Sharon Kathleen Murphy and Angelo Joseph Bertolotti. Her parents divorced when she was two and Murphy was raised in Edison, New Jersey by her mom. Brittany and her mom moved to Los Angeles in 1991 for Murphy's acting career. She has two older half-brothers — one of whom has his own strange convictions about Murphy's death — we'll get into that later — and a younger half-sister named Pia Jo Reynolds.
1. Brittany had a fear of dying.
Murphy's sister adamantly insists her actress sister was afraid of dying. She also doesn't think her sister had a drug habit or an eating disorder. She said, "I know a lot of accusations were made about [Brittany] being on drugs and not eating. In pictures, it looks like she was super-sick. I can’t imagine Brittany being weak, but she was very dependent. Still, I can say with all confidence in my heart she was not addicted to prescription drugs. No way! It sounds way out of character for Brittany. She had been scared of death since she was a child. She had a fear of having heart issues when she was younger. We talked about it. It was a general fear of death. She was super careful about how she took care of herself.”
2. Who is Brittany Murphy's sister, Pia Jo Reynolds?
Reynolds lives in Olive Branch, Mississippi. She goes by the user name EasterPia on Twitter. Her Twitter bio says: "Jesus... Family... Music... Unity. I love friends and food, as well... especially the sweet kind." She attended Northwest Mississippi Community College. She has been married to Jason Reynolds for 11 years. She is the National Mobilization Director for Awaken The Dawn, "a grassroots movement of day and night worship, prayer and missions."
3. They were estranged as teenagers.
Murphy and Reynolds didn't grow up together and were estranged for six years when they were children. They reconciled when Murphy was 19 and Reynolds was 16. Their father, Angelo Bertolotti, passed away in June 2019. Reynolds launched a GoFundMe campaign to pay for his funeral expenses.
4. Murphy had panic attacks.
Reynolds said that Murphy had anxiety-related panic attacks. She said, "[Brittany] was amazing and bubbly and charming I didn’t view her at all to be naïve. The thought of her being on meth when she had suffered from full-blown paralyzing anxiety attacks does not sound like her,” she insisted.
5. Murphy's half-brother thinks she was murderd.
Murphy's half-brother Tony Bertolotti believes his sister was murdered. “If you look at it from a distance, it's like here's this young lady, a fairly healthy girl, she's home with her supposed husband and mother, and she died. How absurd is it? It's only in Hollywood that it's considered another day at the zoo. No one takes her to a hospital, which is just four miles away. I spent years looking at this, suppressing my own anger. I think Brittany was taken out. Who killed Brittany? She didn't die of natural causes.”
6. What was Murphy's cause of death?
With all of this speculation from her siblings, let's remember what Murphy's actual cause of death 10 years ago. Los Angeles coroner Ed Winter said at the time that Murphy’s death was caused by pneumonia, an iron deficiency and multiple-drug intoxication. "
Amy Lamare is a writer covering entertainment, pop culture, beauty, fashion, fitness, technology, and the intersection of technology, business, and philanthropy. You can find her on Instagram and Facebook.