Brittany Murphy & Selena Gomez Had Similar Struggles, Says Director

Oct 30, 2023

Dec. 17 2022, Published 12:00 a.m. ET

Director Alek Keshishian is reflecting on his experience working with both Selena Gomez and late actress Brittany Murphy, noting he witnessed them go through some of the same struggles.

In a new interview, he said Love and Other Disasters star Murphy was "an amazing light, but she had a lot of demons."

Though the filmmaker was having a ball making the 2006 flick, he admitted the set was also "troubled because I had a troubled actress in the lead."

"I was protective of her," he added. "I considered shutting down the movie, but that would have put 70 crew members out of work. So we carried on. ... I think that affected me."

The blonde beauty was just 32 when she suddenly died on December 20 in 2009. The tragedy shocked and confused the masses, as a coroner stated she passed due to untreated pneumonia, which worsened from anemia and drug intoxication. The drugs in her system were all prescribed or over-the-counter medications.

Some believed her husband at the time, Simon Monjack, prevented her from seeing a doctor in time. Monjack died of eerily similar causes in 2020.

Keshishian, 58, is the man behind Selena Gomez's recently released Apple TV doc, Selena Gomez: My Mind and Me, and he expressed that the reason he stopped filming the Disney Channel alum at one point was because he recognized that just like Murphy, the singer-actress, 30, was going through hardships.

TRAUMATIZED ASHTON KUTCHER 'WANTS NOTHING TO DO WITH' HBO'S UPCOMING DOCUMENTARY ON LATE EX BRITTANY MURPHY, REVEALS INSIDER

"I could sense the wheels were coming off," he recalled. "I saw this girl going through a lot of pain. It felt exploitative for me to have cameras while she's in the thick of it."

"In 2016, I was like, 'This isn't right — I don't want to film this.' Selena needed to live through that and hopefully get better and figure it all out," he spilled. "If I was still 24, I probably wouldn't have stopped. I would have been, like, 'Oh, this fascinates me, let's just keep rolling.' But I do hope that I've gotten wiser with age. I hope I've gotten more compassionate."

The Independent conducted the interview with Keshishian.