The voice at the end of the line was barely coherent. ‘I have not slept for more than two days,’ explained Simon Monjack, when we spoke to him on the phone earlier this week. He was, he said, utterly disoriented by the way his life had been torn apart in an instant. Mr Monjack was referring to the moment — ‘8.30am last Sunday’ — when his wife, Hollywood actress Brittany Murphy, 32, was found unconscious in the bathroom of their Los Angeles home following a suspected heart attack. She never regained consciousness.

 ‘My world was destroyed,’ said Mr Monjack, who was born in North London to Jewish parents. He and Brittany, he revealed, were planning to start a family.Under different circumstances, it would have been impossible not to take his words at face value: simply those of a grief-stricken husband who had lost the love of his life.
 
In fact, he has been nicknamed ‘Con-Jack’ in America. Among the ‘charges’ are allegations of credit card fraud, running up huge debts, visa violations and getting his wife fired from her last film after turning up drunk on set.‘I know I have been called a conman,’ Mr Monjack told us. ‘I am not perfect. I never said I was. But there has been so much rubbish written about me and Brittany. Most of what you read is made up.’

Hence his decision to engage in what some might describe as a personal PR campaign even before Miss Murphy was laid to rest on Thursday in the same LA memorial park as Michael Jackson.Nevertheless, despite his public denials of any wrong-doing this week, the question many in Hollywood are asking is: how did the beautiful and talented Brittany Murphy, best known for her roles in Clueless, 8 Mile and Girl, Interrupted, ever get involved with the overweight Monjack, whose talents as a ‘screenwriter, director, and producer’ are much less discernible?

But Miss Murphy, it seems, fitted into a familiar pattern. She was rich, obviously, but also surprisingly vulnerable (her painfully thin appearance of late led to rumours she was suffering from anorexia).Before Miss Murphy, we have been told, there were a string of other women who, in one way or another, came to regret ever meeting the charming Simon Monjack.

Among them is a former girlfriend from a wealthy London family, who is alleged to have lost more than 200,000£ after investing in one of his ‘film’ projects. The emotional cost was much higher.‘She still hasn’t really got over him,’ said a close friend. ‘She is still in a very fragile state. But we’re all just relieved he’s out of her life. When I heard he had married Brittany Murphy a few years ago I thought: “Poor, poor Brittany".’

This will come as no surprise to 36-year-old Simone Bienne, or Simone Panjwani, as she was when she was swept off her feet by Mr Monjack.

Bucharest Herald