WEBVTT 00:02.343 --> 00:12.973 [SPEAKER_17]: Con artists are everywhere, and innocent people are getting scammed, left and right, every single day, over the phone, over the internet. 00:13.573 --> 00:18.238 [SPEAKER_17]: And here in Los Angeles, there's an uptick in staged accidents. 00:19.793 --> 00:34.401 [SPEAKER_17]: a crash for cash, as it's called, where someone will purposely rear end you, and then another scammer in Kahootz with them will appear on the scene out of nowhere, saying they saw the whole thing and you were in the wrong. 00:35.122 --> 00:41.985 [SPEAKER_17]: Just so they can shake down your insurance company for a few thousand dollars, and this scam works really well. 00:42.706 --> 00:44.547 [SPEAKER_17]: It just happened to a good friend of mine. 00:46.443 --> 00:52.448 [SPEAKER_17]: But by far, the worst kind of scams happening these days are love scams. 00:54.169 --> 01:05.419 [SPEAKER_17]: People who fall in love with con artists, not knowing their con artists, and the other thing they don't know, is that falling in love with a con artist can kill you. 01:09.143 --> 01:12.704 [SPEAKER_17]: That's exactly what happened to famous Hollywood actress, Brittany Murphy. 01:13.665 --> 01:18.066 [SPEAKER_17]: She fell in love with a con artist, and it literally killed her. 01:27.890 --> 01:36.993 [SPEAKER_17]: I'm Jonathan Walton, and this is Hardcore Con, episode two, Simon Says. 01:45.232 --> 01:49.056 [SPEAKER_20]: I don't know why John's going out, the high school boy, they're like dogs. 01:49.657 --> 01:54.041 [SPEAKER_17]: It's a movie that defined the Southern California Valley Girl archetype. 01:54.722 --> 01:55.803 [SPEAKER_22]: Ah, as if. 01:56.343 --> 02:03.811 [SPEAKER_17]: Clueless comes out in 1995, and it's a monster hit, grossing nearly $90 million at the box office. 02:03.831 --> 02:06.253 [SPEAKER_17]: He clipsing it's $12 million budget. 02:07.439 --> 02:15.662 [SPEAKER_23]: Amber, Mr. Gert, my plastic surgeon doesn't want me doing any activity where balls fly at my nose, but there goes your social life. 02:16.302 --> 02:24.184 [SPEAKER_17]: It's about disparate groups of over-the-top Beverly Hills teenagers, navigating the pitfalls of their high-end high school. 02:24.724 --> 02:29.646 [SPEAKER_19]: You need to tell me that you argued your way from a C plus to an A minus? 02:30.146 --> 02:33.027 [SPEAKER_16]: Totally based on my powers of persuasion, you proud? 02:33.227 --> 02:36.888 [SPEAKER_19]: Honey, I couldn't be happier than if they were based on real grades. 02:37.562 --> 02:41.563 [SPEAKER_17]: Clueless turns actress Alicia Silverstone into a house-hold name. 02:41.983 --> 02:44.643 [SPEAKER_00]: Is it up here, like, you know, the center of attention starting? 02:45.383 --> 02:47.084 [SPEAKER_20]: Um, yeah, because nobody treats me like it. 02:48.004 --> 03:04.667 [SPEAKER_17]: But Clueless also introduces the world to 17-year-old Brittany Murphy, who steals scene after scene after scene in the movie, playing tie, a grungy, not quite Beverly Hills Reddy teenager, undergoing a makeover metamorphosis. 03:05.443 --> 03:07.905 [SPEAKER_04]: It's like why am I even listening to you to begin with? 03:08.565 --> 03:10.806 [SPEAKER_17]: You're a virgin who can't drive. 03:11.407 --> 03:21.373 [SPEAKER_17]: After Clueless, Brittany Murphy goes on to star in a slew of hit Hollywood movies, including Girl Interrupted with Angelina Jolie in 1999. 03:21.873 --> 03:22.934 [SPEAKER_03]: My father loves me. 03:23.374 --> 03:26.056 [SPEAKER_17]: Don't say a word with Michael Douglas in 2001. 03:26.076 --> 03:28.678 [SPEAKER_15]: I'll never tell. 03:29.358 --> 03:31.479 [SPEAKER_17]: Uptown girls, with Dakota Fanning in 2003, 03:32.797 --> 03:37.341 [SPEAKER_03]: He don't know what goes on between me and Ray, because you don't know very much about your own daughter. 03:37.821 --> 03:47.949 [SPEAKER_17]: And during Brittany Murphy's rise to start him, she dates a bunch of different kinds of guys, which ultimately sets her up to fall in love with a con artist. 03:48.750 --> 03:49.470 [SPEAKER_17]: Let me explain. 03:50.371 --> 03:55.255 [SPEAKER_17]: Brittany Murphy starts dating M&M while starring in his movie Eight Mile back in 2002. 03:55.315 --> 03:57.257 [SPEAKER_03]: I hear your real dope rap there. 03:59.329 --> 04:05.536 [SPEAKER_17]: And then she dates, Ashton Kutcher, while starring in the movie just married with him in 2003. 04:07.838 --> 04:12.223 [SPEAKER_17]: I mean, their chemistry doing press interviews for the movie is palpable. 04:13.787 --> 04:14.587 [SPEAKER_10]: She's a scorpion. 04:14.988 --> 04:15.908 [SPEAKER_10]: What else do you mean? 04:15.928 --> 04:16.108 [SPEAKER_10]: No. 04:16.749 --> 04:19.230 [SPEAKER_17]: I'm just up on the top of the scorpion. 04:19.250 --> 04:20.131 [SPEAKER_10]: Double scorpion. 04:20.151 --> 04:22.052 [SPEAKER_10]: She'll be doing it on the wedding. 04:22.432 --> 04:34.138 [SPEAKER_17]: But after five months, Ashton Kutcher breaks up with Brittany Murphy, reportedly telling a friend that he had never met anyone who wanted to get married more than Brittany Murphy. 04:34.479 --> 04:38.741 [SPEAKER_09]: I'm not like a big believer in marriage, like all together, but... 04:41.002 --> 04:48.330 [SPEAKER_17]: After Eminem and Ashton Kutcher, Brittany goes on to date two other men who are not Hollywood actors or performers. 04:49.351 --> 04:57.840 [SPEAKER_17]: In 2004, she dates a talent manager and she actually gets engaged to him, saying publicly that he is the love of her life. 04:59.271 --> 05:01.832 [SPEAKER_17]: but the couple breaks up a few months later. 05:02.513 --> 05:13.017 [SPEAKER_17]: And then, the next year in 2005, Brittany Murphy starts dating a production assistant that she meets on the set of the movie she's filming, Little Black Book. 05:13.337 --> 05:18.440 [SPEAKER_02]: How does a girl who jumps into a rabbit hole plummeting into chaos come out unchanged? 05:19.012 --> 05:31.398 [SPEAKER_17]: And even though she only knows this guy, this production assistant, for a few months, she gets engaged, a big time Hollywood actress, getting engaged to a production assistant from one of her films. 05:32.138 --> 05:35.119 [SPEAKER_17]: It's a rare kind of thing, but it does actually happen. 05:35.619 --> 05:41.102 [SPEAKER_17]: I mean, Christina Aguilera famously falls in love with a production assistant from her film, 05:50.095 --> 05:54.336 [SPEAKER_17]: and they're reportedly still together today and have an 11-year-old daughter. 05:55.136 --> 06:01.478 [SPEAKER_17]: But Brittany Murphy's engagement to her production assistant boyfriend is sadly short-lived. 06:02.158 --> 06:04.599 [SPEAKER_17]: The couple breaks up just a few months later. 06:05.299 --> 06:17.503 [SPEAKER_17]: Friends and acquaintances of Brittany Murphy have stated publicly that she is a hopeless romantic that she wants to get married more than anything in the world so that she can have kids and start a family. 06:18.343 --> 06:31.549 [SPEAKER_17]: and what no one could have imagined at the time was that Brittany Murphy was unintentionally giving a professional con artist all the intel he needed to scam her to death. 06:31.569 --> 06:36.010 [SPEAKER_22]: It's the morning of December 20th, 2009 and 32-year-old Brittany Murphy is lying dead in her 06:47.420 --> 06:53.823 [SPEAKER_17]: Her lifeless body is sprawled out in the shower, a powerful spray of cold water, drenches her. 06:54.623 --> 06:55.904 [SPEAKER_17]: She will not come too. 06:57.185 --> 07:02.527 [SPEAKER_17]: So her husband of two years, a man named Simon Monjack, lays her body out on the floor. 07:04.288 --> 07:06.209 [SPEAKER_17]: And starts performing CPR. 07:08.770 --> 07:10.811 [SPEAKER_17]: As her frantic mother is on the phone with 9-1-1. 07:13.637 --> 07:16.080 [SPEAKER_22]: I can count with you, okay? 07:16.120 --> 07:16.680 [SPEAKER_21]: I want to hear. 07:16.781 --> 07:24.229 [SPEAKER_21]: I just got to be at this rate like 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, keep going at that rate. 07:26.231 --> 07:26.892 [SPEAKER_21]: That's his flow. 07:27.433 --> 07:29.515 [SPEAKER_22]: That's his flow. 07:29.555 --> 07:30.015 [SPEAKER_22]: His flow. 07:30.496 --> 07:31.657 [SPEAKER_22]: Okay, he's so exhausted. 07:33.078 --> 07:36.619 [SPEAKER_21]: You've got to be a little faster than that, so many are doing mouth-to-mouth. 07:37.640 --> 07:40.921 [SPEAKER_21]: Okay, all right, did somebody see what happened? 07:41.081 --> 07:42.522 [SPEAKER_22]: No! 07:42.782 --> 07:44.923 [SPEAKER_22]: Okay, my daughter passed out! 07:45.763 --> 07:48.204 [SPEAKER_17]: Her daughter Brittany Murphy wasn't passed out, though. 07:48.884 --> 07:58.208 [SPEAKER_17]: She was dead, and her actual cause of death can be traced all the way back to the moment she falls in love with Simon Monjack. 08:10.400 --> 08:17.167 [SPEAKER_17]: It's September now, in 2006, three years before Brittany Murphy is lying dead on her bathroom floor. 08:17.888 --> 08:21.652 [SPEAKER_17]: She's in Japan, shooting a movie called The Ramen Girl. 08:21.672 --> 08:25.416 [SPEAKER_14]: I'm training to become a ramen chef. 08:27.596 --> 08:50.787 [SPEAKER_17]: It's the end of a long day on set, and she's sitting in bed in her Tokyo hotel room, reading a new script titled The White Hotel, written by British filmmaker Simon Monjack based on a book about an Austrian opera singer being treated by Sigmund Freud for psychosomatic pains in her left breast and vagina. 08:51.347 --> 09:01.674 [SPEAKER_17]: Pits a truly bizarre story that the likes of Nicole Kidman, David Lynch and Barbara Streisand have all tried and failed to bring to the screen. 09:03.635 --> 09:16.423 [SPEAKER_17]: But Brittany Murphy loves this latest incarnation, supposedly written by Simon Monjack, and she wants to meet with him as soon as she gets back to Los Angeles to talk about possibly starring in it. 09:29.909 --> 09:43.831 [SPEAKER_17]: Brittany Murphy is under the impression that Simon Monjack is a writer and a director and a producer, but he's actually just a con artist who cleverly appears to be a writer and a director and a producer. 09:44.132 --> 09:57.934 [SPEAKER_17]: But the only film Simon Monjack is credited with directing is a 2001 UK movie called Two Days Nine Lives, a movie that was funded entirely by his own family. 09:58.474 --> 10:01.635 [SPEAKER_17]: And a movie that was never actually released to the public. 10:01.995 --> 10:11.078 [SPEAKER_17]: And the only other film credit to Simon Monjax's name is a bizarre story credit for 2006 film called Factory Girl. 10:11.618 --> 10:13.358 [SPEAKER_06]: Here is property, okay? 10:13.378 --> 10:15.059 [SPEAKER_06]: You're disposable to him. 10:15.654 --> 10:25.943 [SPEAKER_08]: But the actual director of factory girl, George Hickenlooper, The reason I made the film was to sort of tell a story about what it means to look for love. 10:26.083 --> 10:35.612 [SPEAKER_17]: Has stated publicly that, quote, Simon Majak had nothing to do with the film factory girl, and that he filed a frivolous lawsuit against a movie. 10:38.782 --> 10:46.467 [SPEAKER_17]: making bogus claims that they'd stolen his script and they were forced to settle with him as he held the production over a barrel. 10:47.288 --> 10:58.816 [SPEAKER_17]: Simon Monjack wanted a story credit on the movie in order to drop his lawsuit and producers just gave it to him because it was much cheaper and quicker than going to trial. 10:59.356 --> 11:03.218 [SPEAKER_17]: I mean, a trial would have held up the film's release and cost 11:10.760 --> 11:17.788 [SPEAKER_17]: So they settled with Simon Monjack, and gave him a story credit, which didn't cost them anything. 11:18.308 --> 11:25.015 [SPEAKER_17]: Just so they could release their movie on time, a movie that Simon Monjack had no part in making. 11:25.876 --> 11:40.770 [SPEAKER_17]: It's the same reason car insurance companies will just pay off those crash for cash scammers I mentioned earlier because cutting them a check for $5 or $10,000 is way cheaper than paying a lawyer to go to trial. 11:41.270 --> 11:59.640 [SPEAKER_17]: But the director of the movie factory girl, George Hickenlooper, desperately tried to sound the alarm that Simon Monjack was using his ill-gotten scammy factory girl movie credits to solicit money from Hollywood, but actresses like Brittany Murphy were just not listening. 12:09.100 --> 12:26.457 [SPEAKER_17]: It's early 2007 now, a few months after Simon Monjack scammed his way into getting that factory girl movie credits, and he and Brittany Murphy are having dinner at a swanky Los Angeles eatery discussing the movie he's planning to cast her in, the White Hotel. 12:27.238 --> 12:29.360 [SPEAKER_17]: Brittany Murphy loves his script. 12:29.980 --> 12:43.588 [SPEAKER_17]: and his refined British accent, there's just something about a British accent to most Americans that engenders trust and respect and embues whatever they're saying with authority and the tinge of majesty. 12:44.368 --> 12:56.735 [SPEAKER_17]: Brittany Murphy, wholeheartedly believes this movie, the White Hotel is really going to happen and she's excited for the opportunity, but the White Hotel will never actually be made. 13:03.175 --> 13:19.391 [SPEAKER_17]: Remember, Con artist don't outsmart you, they outfeel you, and right now Simon Majak is ruthlessly outfeeling Brittany Murphy, weaponizing her excitement against her to hook her into his latest scam. 13:22.093 --> 13:26.758 [SPEAKER_17]: Keep in mind, Simon Majak is not a good looking man by any stretch. 13:28.842 --> 13:51.199 [SPEAKER_17]: He's about a hundred pounds overweight and really greasy, but as I explain in my book, anatomy of a con artist, the 14 red flags to spot scammerscriptors and thieves, what most professional con men and con women lack in physical appearance, they more than make up for with their personality and charm and charisma. 13:51.659 --> 13:55.783 [SPEAKER_17]: That is their superpower, and that's how they rope their victims in. 13:56.623 --> 14:04.267 [SPEAKER_17]: Simon Monjack appears exceedingly charming and charismatic to Brittany Murphy, and he's chokingly reverential. 14:05.047 --> 14:13.631 [SPEAKER_17]: He tells her that if she listens to him and if she does a good job on his film, she could win her first Oscar for the role he's giving her. 14:14.332 --> 14:21.215 [SPEAKER_17]: And just so you know, the desire to win an Oscar is like crack to most actors in this town. 14:21.855 --> 14:23.196 [SPEAKER_17]: Some of them will literally 14:25.616 --> 14:28.517 [SPEAKER_13]: I would like to thank Harvey Weinstein. 14:28.637 --> 14:29.537 [SPEAKER_17]: Thank Harvey Weinstein. 14:29.697 --> 14:30.897 [SPEAKER_13]: Thank you Harvey Weinstein. 14:31.177 --> 14:40.900 [SPEAKER_17]: At some point during that first dinner with Simon Monjack, Brittany Murphy makes the fatal mistake that every victim makes in the midst of every professional con artist. 14:41.540 --> 14:49.162 [SPEAKER_17]: She reveals the thing she really wants more than anything in the world and the thing that she's having trouble getting in life. 14:49.722 --> 14:52.183 [SPEAKER_17]: And that's a husband and a baby. 14:57.122 --> 15:06.211 [SPEAKER_17]: If you recall Brittany Murphy's four previous relationships with Eminem and Ashton Kutcher, and the other two guys, she was engaged to all ended. 15:06.672 --> 15:13.578 [SPEAKER_17]: And Ashton Kutcher tells a friend in a disparaging way that he'd never met anyone who wanted to get married more than Brittany Murphy. 15:14.239 --> 15:18.163 [SPEAKER_17]: Well, the second Simon Monjack figures out her problem. 15:18.643 --> 15:22.768 [SPEAKER_17]: He quickly begins to position himself as the solution. 15:23.588 --> 15:35.240 [SPEAKER_17]: Just four months after that in auspicious dinner in Los Angeles, where Simon Monjack casts Brittany Murphy as the lead in a film that he tricks her into believing is really happening. 15:40.342 --> 15:48.065 [SPEAKER_17]: She actually marries him in a private ceremony to the utter shock and awe of all her friends and family. 15:48.825 --> 15:53.507 [SPEAKER_17]: All except for Brittany Murphy's mother, she gets taken in by the Conman too. 15:54.167 --> 16:00.269 [SPEAKER_17]: And she gets sucked into this fictitious world he creates out of whole cloth, made up of lies. 16:00.329 --> 16:05.811 [SPEAKER_17]: He's been telling for years, perfecting each fantastical tale over time. 16:06.091 --> 16:11.356 [SPEAKER_22]: Oh, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, I would, 16:11.675 --> 16:39.343 [SPEAKER_17]: Eight years before Brittany Murphy Mary's Simon Monjack, it's 1999, an Allison Burnett, the screenwriter for the movie Autumn in New York, starring Richard Geer and one owner writer, is hosting a dinner party for industry friends and invites Simon Monjack to attend because Burnett's heart tell that Simon Monjack is a billionaire from London who just got to Hollywood and is looking to mix things up. 16:39.823 --> 16:43.946 [SPEAKER_17]: Burnett thinks, maybe Simon Manjak can fund a film I want to make. 16:44.527 --> 16:45.487 [SPEAKER_01]: I'd like to propose a toast. 16:45.748 --> 16:54.074 [SPEAKER_17]: During dinner, Simon Manjak is quite the Bombay Vaunt Rock Contour, regilling everyone at the table with tales of his incredible wealth. 16:54.875 --> 17:02.841 [SPEAKER_17]: He says his grandfather is the founder of British steel, and that he, Simon Manjak, personally owns 17 Ferrari's. 17:04.582 --> 17:10.487 [SPEAKER_17]: and that his past girlfriends include Supermodel Elmick-Pherson and Madonna. 17:14.710 --> 17:18.112 [SPEAKER_17]: Now remember, this dinner party is happening in 1999. 17:18.613 --> 17:24.497 [SPEAKER_17]: There are no smartphones, no social media, and only 26% of homes have internet. 17:24.897 --> 17:27.900 [SPEAKER_17]: So people can't really Google stuff in the moment, 17:35.173 --> 17:37.063 [SPEAKER_12]: And he needs to work on him about that. 17:37.103 --> 17:37.988 [SPEAKER_12]: That's a thing. 17:39.077 --> 17:55.701 [SPEAKER_17]: Simon Monjack also tells those Hollywood writers and producers gathered at that long and important dinner table that night that he recently had terminal brain cancer and beat it into remission by ingesting a rare and very expensive potion derived from shark fins. 17:56.481 --> 18:05.863 [SPEAKER_17]: Keep in mind, nothing Simon Monjack tells the people at that dinner party that night is true and his cancer story is actually a rerun. 18:12.773 --> 18:24.079 [SPEAKER_17]: Years earlier, he tells the same story to his own mother and tricks her out of thousands of dollars for a fictitious treatment in hospital stays that did not happen. 18:24.720 --> 18:32.644 [SPEAKER_17]: Most con artists are psychopaths, which means there's a stark difference between con artists and other kinds of criminals. 18:33.304 --> 18:35.545 [SPEAKER_17]: Let's take a mob boss, for instance. 18:36.086 --> 18:40.088 [SPEAKER_17]: Yes, a mob boss will order the murder of dozens of people who cross him. 18:42.346 --> 18:44.528 [SPEAKER_17]: and there will be blood on his hands for sure. 18:45.188 --> 18:51.833 [SPEAKER_17]: But a mob boss loves his own mother and would never do anything to harm his own family. 18:52.573 --> 19:00.119 [SPEAKER_17]: Con artist's on the other hand will scam their own mother and their father and their brothers and their sisters and their children. 19:00.679 --> 19:03.902 [SPEAKER_17]: Con artist will scam anyone they come in contact with. 19:04.482 --> 19:15.313 [SPEAKER_17]: So the fact that Simon Majak scammed his own mother using fake cancer treatments as a ruse should tell you everything you need to know about his character or lack thereof. 19:20.022 --> 19:20.342 [SPEAKER_17]: It's 2003 now. 19:20.362 --> 19:26.483 [SPEAKER_17]: Four years before Brittany Murphy Marries, Simon Monjack, she's still dating Ashton Kutcher at this point, and she plunks down nearly $4 million, and buys a beautiful five-bedroom 8,000-square-foot mansion in the Hollywood Hills, from none other than Brittany Spears. 19:26.503 --> 19:49.668 [SPEAKER_17]: [♪ music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in background music playing in 19:53.089 --> 19:59.150 [SPEAKER_17]: She tells a friend that a ghost tried to push her down the stairs, and she's glad to be getting out of it. 20:01.430 --> 20:08.732 [SPEAKER_17]: So in 2003, Brittany Murphy moves into that house with her mother, who she's been living with ever since she was born. 20:09.312 --> 20:12.552 [SPEAKER_17]: I mean, Brittany and her mother are inseparable. 20:13.252 --> 20:20.074 [SPEAKER_17]: She's 28 years old at this point, but when she was a kid, her mother sees tremendous talent in Brittany Murphy. 20:20.574 --> 20:21.894 [SPEAKER_17]: This is her at 12 years old. 20:24.358 --> 20:29.805 [SPEAKER_17]: Charming a local New Jersey TV reporter at the fair and to including her in his story. 20:30.405 --> 20:40.418 [SPEAKER_17]: She percosiously walks right up to him, Draver then gung a den, and asks Point Blank if he'd like a children's perspective on the fair story he's covering that day. 20:41.770 --> 20:43.211 [SPEAKER_07]: Yes, I don't like it, she wasn't perspective. 20:43.231 --> 20:43.712 [SPEAKER_07]: What is it name? 20:43.732 --> 20:43.952 [SPEAKER_07]: Brittany. 20:43.972 --> 20:44.192 [SPEAKER_07]: Brittany. 20:44.212 --> 20:44.492 [SPEAKER_07]: Brittany. 20:44.872 --> 20:45.313 [SPEAKER_07]: Brittany. 20:45.493 --> 20:45.753 [SPEAKER_07]: Brittany. 20:45.773 --> 20:46.013 [SPEAKER_07]: Brittany. 20:46.033 --> 20:46.234 [SPEAKER_07]: Brittany. 20:46.254 --> 20:46.514 [SPEAKER_07]: Brittany. 20:46.594 --> 20:46.874 [SPEAKER_07]: Brittany. 20:46.914 --> 20:47.254 [SPEAKER_07]: Brittany. 20:47.274 --> 20:47.535 [SPEAKER_07]: Brittany. 20:47.575 --> 20:47.855 [SPEAKER_07]: Brittany. 20:47.915 --> 20:48.095 [SPEAKER_07]: Brittany. 20:48.115 --> 20:48.355 [SPEAKER_07]: Brittany. 20:48.375 --> 20:48.575 [SPEAKER_07]: Brittany. 20:48.595 --> 20:48.816 [SPEAKER_07]: Brittany. 20:48.836 --> 20:49.056 [SPEAKER_07]: Brittany. 20:49.076 --> 20:49.336 [SPEAKER_07]: Brittany. 20:49.816 --> 20:50.097 [SPEAKER_07]: Brittany. 20:50.217 --> 20:50.457 [SPEAKER_07]: Brittany. 20:50.477 --> 20:50.777 [SPEAKER_07]: Brittany. 20:50.797 --> 20:51.037 [SPEAKER_07]: Brittany. 20:51.057 --> 20:51.257 [SPEAKER_07]: Brittany. 20:51.278 --> 20:51.478 [SPEAKER_07]: Brittany. 20:51.498 --> 20:51.678 [SPEAKER_07]: Brittany. 20:51.698 --> 20:51.938 [SPEAKER_07]: Brittany. 20:59.684 --> 21:03.606 [SPEAKER_17]: They just pop, and they really stand out in a crowd. 21:04.327 --> 21:06.788 [SPEAKER_17]: Brittany's mom knew her daughter was special. 21:07.068 --> 21:09.449 [SPEAKER_17]: Ever since she was a kid doing school plays. 21:10.110 --> 21:14.972 [SPEAKER_17]: And in 1991, she moves Brittany from New Jersey to Los Angeles. 21:15.293 --> 21:21.136 [SPEAKER_17]: When Brittany is just 13 years old, so she can pursue a legitimate acting career. 21:21.676 --> 21:25.178 [SPEAKER_11]: Line up, and when you're called on, say your lines to camera. 21:25.715 --> 21:39.445 [SPEAKER_17]: And just four years later, in 1995, Brittany Murphy lands that breakout role includes this as a bunch of junk that reminded me of Elton, but I want to burn it because I am so overhand. 21:39.868 --> 21:47.657 [SPEAKER_17]: Fast forward now to 2008, in 2009, and Brittany Murphy's married life with her husband, Con artist Simon Monjack. 21:48.418 --> 21:56.446 [SPEAKER_17]: I want to point out here that one of the major 14 red flags that every scammer waves, it's the red flag of isolation. 21:57.227 --> 22:03.151 [SPEAKER_17]: In order for a con artist to successfully scam you, they need to be able to isolate you. 22:03.651 --> 22:13.637 [SPEAKER_17]: To lure you away from friends and family members who might otherwise talk you out of going along with the con, who might poke holes in all the incredible stories you're being told. 22:14.317 --> 22:21.822 [SPEAKER_17]: And over the course of their two plus years together, Simon Monjack isolates Brittany Murphy from all of her friends and family. 22:22.462 --> 22:28.665 [SPEAKER_17]: It gets so bad that one day, all of her loved ones orchestrate a bona fide intervention. 22:29.346 --> 22:38.070 [SPEAKER_17]: To try to get Brittany Murphy to understand that her husband is a pathological liar, and he's been isolating her from them, and he's not good for her. 22:39.191 --> 22:41.152 [SPEAKER_17]: But by this time, it was too late. 22:41.816 --> 22:48.961 [SPEAKER_17]: Brittany Murphy was madly in love with Simon Monchak, or rather madly in love with the man she believed him to be. 22:49.941 --> 22:53.724 [SPEAKER_17]: And love is the most powerful force there is in the universe. 22:54.164 --> 22:58.167 [SPEAKER_17]: People kill for love all the time, and die for love all the time. 22:58.727 --> 23:04.391 [SPEAKER_17]: Most people, myself included, will do anything for the person they love, anything. 23:05.660 --> 23:20.453 [SPEAKER_17]: And if you're in love with a con artist, like Brittany Murphy was in love with Simon Monjack, doing anything, included, turning her back on all of her friends and family, who tried to talk some sense into her that day, during that intervention. 23:26.509 --> 23:41.426 [SPEAKER_17]: and to complete the utter isolation of Brittany Murphy, Conard is Simon Monjack fires her agent, fires her manager, and fires her lawyer, and he takes control of her cell phone and her email account. 23:42.227 --> 23:52.635 [SPEAKER_17]: He didn't want anyone outside his purview talking to her, or telling her anything that might pierce the veil of the made-up world he was holding her hostage in. 23:53.095 --> 24:04.244 [SPEAKER_17]: He even fires her hair and makeup person on her last film, and insists on doing her hair and makeup himself, and he does an awful job. 24:04.884 --> 24:09.107 [SPEAKER_17]: It's a movie called Something Wicked, and Brittany Murphy's hair and makeup 24:12.293 --> 24:15.820 [SPEAKER_15]: and she's been displaying signs, pushed them out of stress. 24:20.832 --> 24:30.762 [SPEAKER_17]: And from the moment Brittany Murphy starts dating Simon Monjack, he is ferociously waving the first con artist red flag that I write extensively about in my book. 24:31.342 --> 24:32.463 [SPEAKER_17]: It's red flag number one. 24:32.964 --> 24:37.608 [SPEAKER_17]: I just want to help because who doesn't immediately love a helper? 24:38.209 --> 24:44.214 [SPEAKER_17]: And from day one, Brittany Murphy believes with all her heart that Simon Monjack is helping her. 24:44.895 --> 24:50.851 [SPEAKER_17]: helping her with her career, helping her with her love life, and helping her with her finances. 24:55.705 --> 25:20.098 [SPEAKER_17]: In the two years they were married, Simon Monjack takes three million dollars out of Brittany Murphy's bank account, and convinces her, he's investing it in real estate, and he buys her diamonds with some of that money and tells her their investments too, and that these diamonds will appreciate astronomically in value as the years go by, and will be worth many millions more very soon. 25:20.919 --> 25:22.660 [SPEAKER_17]: But the truth of the matter is. 25:23.420 --> 25:32.944 [SPEAKER_17]: There were never any investments, no real estate, no nothing, and all of those diamonds he bought her were fake. 25:41.928 --> 25:46.830 [SPEAKER_17]: Simon Monjack was just a con man who was bleeding his victim dry. 25:54.963 --> 26:08.088 [SPEAKER_17]: So on that morning of December 20th, 2009, when Brittany Murphy's mother is calling 9-1-1, and Simon Monjack is doing chess compressions on her lifeless body, it's too late. 26:08.949 --> 26:14.091 [SPEAKER_17]: She's already dead, and her official cause of death is pneumonia. 26:14.771 --> 26:33.321 [SPEAKER_17]: But here's the thing, Brittany Murphy had been battling a respiratory infection for six weeks, six mother fucking weeks, and she just kept getting worse and worse, and Simon Monjack wouldn't take her to a doctor, and he wouldn't take her to a hospital. 26:33.981 --> 26:34.301 [SPEAKER_17]: Why? 26:34.781 --> 26:48.023 [SPEAKER_17]: Because, like all con artists who isolate their victims, they are constantly terrified and on edge that someone their victim talks to on the outside might snap them out of the spell they're in, might ruin the con. 26:48.503 --> 26:57.505 [SPEAKER_17]: A dozen different doctors who've investigated the death of Brittany Murphy all say the same thing that if she had gotten to a hospital, even a day before 27:03.486 --> 27:10.168 [SPEAKER_17]: that she would be alive today, because pneumonia is curable, as long as you catch it in time. 27:10.928 --> 27:25.113 [SPEAKER_17]: In the aftermath of Britney Murphy's death, Simon Monjack took money from the media to give tours of her home, and he created a phony non-profit in her name and solicited tens of thousands of dollars in donations. 27:25.873 --> 27:29.874 [SPEAKER_17]: It's obvious to me that the last thing in the world, Simon Monjack wanted, 27:32.115 --> 27:33.957 [SPEAKER_17]: I mean, she was his meal ticket. 27:34.538 --> 27:36.019 [SPEAKER_17]: She was his livelihood. 27:36.680 --> 27:39.603 [SPEAKER_17]: And now that she's gone, there's no money coming in. 27:40.504 --> 27:47.752 [SPEAKER_17]: Simon Manjak quickly falls into a deep depression and starts drinking and gets very sick himself. 27:48.693 --> 27:52.917 [SPEAKER_17]: He actually catches pneumonia and refuses to go to the hospital. 27:53.787 --> 28:04.077 [SPEAKER_17]: And six months after Brittany Murphy's death, on May 23rd, 2010, Simon Monjack dies in bed of pneumonia, just like his wife. 28:08.401 --> 28:12.926 [SPEAKER_17]: Of all the podcast episodes I've ever produced, this one was hands down the hardest. 28:13.675 --> 28:17.279 [SPEAKER_17]: I teared up a few times writing it, and I was enraged throughout. 28:18.080 --> 28:32.035 [SPEAKER_17]: But this also might be the most important podcast episode I've ever produced because you all need to know how these love scams are hatched, so you can spot them, not just in your own life, but in the lives of the people you care about. 28:39.204 --> 28:52.007 [SPEAKER_17]: I wish someone close to Brittany Murphy would have run a background check on Simon Monjack early on before she fell madly in love with him and that loved blinded her and God knows before she married him. 28:52.767 --> 28:59.108 [SPEAKER_17]: They would have seen criminal charges and a warrant issued for his arrest for credit card fraud in 2005. 28:59.708 --> 29:05.209 [SPEAKER_17]: They would have seen that he ripped off a UK bank for half a million dollars and that bank 29:08.890 --> 29:12.533 [SPEAKER_17]: They would have discovered he's not the heir to British steel. 29:13.033 --> 29:15.555 [SPEAKER_17]: In fact, he's not wealthy at all. 29:16.455 --> 29:21.456 [SPEAKER_17]: They might have even dug up the fact that he did similar things to previous girlfriends. 29:22.257 --> 29:26.218 [SPEAKER_17]: I saladed them from their family and friends and bought them fake jewels. 29:27.178 --> 29:38.381 [SPEAKER_17]: Simon Monjax owned brother summed him up thusly, quote, from early childhood, Simon had the ability to manipulate the environment to get what he wanted out of it. 29:39.201 --> 29:41.443 [SPEAKER_17]: And his brother didn't say this in a disparaging way. 29:41.963 --> 29:43.525 [SPEAKER_17]: It was just a matter of fact. 29:44.405 --> 29:48.109 [SPEAKER_17]: Simon Monchard was a died in the wool con artist. 29:48.629 --> 29:57.056 [SPEAKER_17]: And he was waving every single one of the 14 red flags that I write about in my book that con artist wave before they scam you. 29:57.676 --> 30:00.959 [SPEAKER_17]: But no one noticed until it was much too late. 30:01.920 --> 30:04.122 [SPEAKER_17]: And it cost Brittany Murphy her life. 30:22.324 --> 30:28.347 [SPEAKER_17]: Hardcore Con was created, written and hosted by me, Jonathan Walton, for Jonathan Walton Media. 30:29.008 --> 30:31.109 [SPEAKER_17]: Executive producer Evan Goldstein. 30:31.869 --> 30:34.731 [SPEAKER_17]: All editing and sound design was done by Jimmy O'Holligan. 30:35.351 --> 30:45.917 [SPEAKER_17]: My book, Anatomy of a Con artist, the 14 Red Flags to spot Scammers, Grippers and Thieves, is available everywhere books are sold, imprint and audio, so it's like a podcast. 30:46.397 --> 30:54.164 [SPEAKER_17]: and both print an audio are also available for free at most public libraries throughout the country and on the Libby app. 30:54.584 --> 30:56.386 [SPEAKER_17]: God, I love the Libby app. 30:58.427 --> 31:07.015 [SPEAKER_17]: Make sure you subscribe to Jonathan Walton Media on whatever podcast platform you're listening on so you can get alerts when new episodes drop and new seasons. 31:07.595 --> 31:09.136 [SPEAKER_17]: And if you've got a story you think 31:19.568 --> 31:19.629 [UNKNOWN]: You