Clueless star Elisa Donovan has confessed she “wasn’t surprised” by Brittany Murphy’s tragic death back in 2009 because she was convinced her former co-star wasn’t well and needed help.
Clueless star Elisa Donovan “wasn’t surprised” by Brittany Murphy’s death.
Brittany – who played Tai in the 1995 teen comedy – passed away in December 2009 at the age of 32 with her death attributed to pneumonia combined with severe anaemia and multiple drug intoxication. Now Elisa – who played Amber in Clueless – has insisted she was worried about Brittany for a long time prior to the tragedy.
During an appearance on the Still Here Hollywood podcast, Elisa, 55, explained: “They told me that she had died but nobody knew, and I have to say, my first thought was, I wasn’t surprised.
“We also shared a hairdresser, not an on set person but our hairdresser in life, and she would, in confidence, say to me: ‘I’m worried about her.’ Because she would go to her house.”
Elisa admitted she wasn’t a “close enough friend” to step in and help Brittany but she convinced someone should have intervened.
She recalled the last time she saw the actress was at the GLAAD Awards in 2005 and Elisa was alarmed by Brittany’s appearance and behaviour.
She said: “Her knees were buckling. Her legs were shaking. And I was like: ‘Are you okay?’ And she was like: ‘Yeah! What? What do you mean?’ and I went: ‘Something is not okay with this person’.
“I looked at her and I was like: ‘She is not healthy. She is not okay. And why is no one helping her?'”
Elisa believes Brittany was struggling with “an eating disorder and a drug problem” and she should have been offered more support.
She said: “That’s what I thought and I knew it. But she had so many people around her. What am I gonna do? This person from her past … come in and save the day or something? …
“So when I heard about this [her death], I was just so sad for her, but I also, like I said, I wasn’t surprised.”
It comes after Elisa Donovan previously admitted she battled her own issues after shooting to fame as a young woman as she struggled “mentally and emotionally” with fame and the loss of privacy.
Recalling the first time a group of fans stopped and pointed at her in public, she told Inspired magazine: “I feel like that was a positive thing for me and helped me to sort of keep myself grounded.
“I certainly didn’t have anyone to help me prepare for that. I had an agent and a manager back then. but it would have been useful to have someone who helped me mentally and emotionally metabolize how to deal With situations like this.”
The Beverly Hills, 90210 star – who played Ginger LaMonica in four episodes of the teen drama – could see how the intensity of the spotlight affected some of her co-stars.
She continued: “Those things exist more now than back then. it was a challenge for sure, but I could also see what the cast of Beverly Hills, 90210 had to deal with, to a way larger extent.
“By the time I was on it, the show had been on for several seasons and they were so famous. Every time I went out with any of them, they were hounded at every corner.
“That was a whole other level. I could see how some of them handled it well, for others it was really difficult. For me, those situations were definitely lessons learned.”
Clueless star Elisa Donovan ‘wasn’t surprised’ by Brittany Murphy’s death
