Inside Brittany Murphy's Problematic Marriage

Was it drugs? Toxic mold? Household poisons? Foul play?

All were fodder for speculation in the days, months and, eventually, years following Brittany Murphy's sudden death in 2009 at the age of 32. Investigation Discovery revisited the tragedy in May 2020, and what is now Max dove in with the two-part What Happened, Brittany Murphy? in October 2021.

But what happened, indeed.

Just her apparent weight loss at one point commanded a career's worth of headlines, but Murphy maintained that any change in her appearance wasn't due to whatever the gossip of the day accused her of doing. She had never been arrested, hadn't gone to rehab and wasn't really that much of a partier. But she was still a tabloid favorite, dating Ashton Kutcher, getting engaged twice and then tying the knot with a guy who seemingly came out of nowhere.

Basically, she was a young actress in Hollywood during the aughts.

But no matter what she was or wasn't doing, that didn't make it any less tragic when her life ended on Dec. …