Comment by january — January 1, 2010 at 6:53 am

Sad – strange look, strange lips – I am wondering if she was under psychiatric care.

Comment by Shocked — January 1, 2010 at 7:03 am

Poor, poor young woman. She was naturally pretty, but felt she had to conform to the blonde skeleton look. This is a very sad story.

Comment by methfreeq — January 1, 2010 at 9:29 am

In this picture she looks like a porn actrice

Comment by MG — January 1, 2010 at 1:21 pm

I feel so sorry for her. Hollywood really messed her up. She was a very pretty and talented person.

Comment by Lola Granola — January 1, 2010 at 4:06 pm

She looks very tired. The lifelessness of the skin and eyes is painfully obvious. Poor girl.

Comment by Bunnie — January 1, 2010 at 7:13 pm

She looks lost. Wistful almost. I loved her when I first saw her in Clueless. I would watch whatever she was in. I loved her as a brunette. She was cute as a Blonde, but to me she was most attractive as a Brunette. I really hope that her blood tests come back clean. But I doubt they will. And my sympathies go out to her mother.

Comment by Brooke — January 1, 2010 at 9:41 pm

Wait, I thought drugs left your pupils the size of saucers… maybe I’m just ignorant, but I’ve never heard of drugs making pupils look shot.

She looks terrible. Obviously something was wrong with her life.

Comment by 62831 — January 2, 2010 at 12:17 am

Good grief, she looks like a large-mouthed bass in that picture. Poor girl. I can only hope she’s in a better place now. RIP, Brittany.

Comment by Venus In Blue Jeans — January 2, 2010 at 12:43 am

Uh-uh, folks. I have prescription opiate medication due to a spinal injury. My puplis are normal size and only pin point in strong light. How can you see her pupils anyway? Her eyes are so dark it is hard to distinguish the pupil from the iris. Why is this site obsessed with this person? Enough already Her lips were probably the result of working with Jolie in ‘Girl Interrupted’, which likely made her feel insecure and competitive. AJ became a hot item and is partially esponsible for the current wave of lips jobs.

Comment by S — January 2, 2010 at 1:24 am

I was the commenter referenced above. In this picture above it is in fact difficult to see her pupils, but if you scroll down you will see the pictures referred to of Brittney that show tiny pupils. As with most celebrity deaths, which invariably get more attention than all the other similar deaths that happen on a daily basis, those left behind wonder why – why someone so young who had it all? Increasingly over the years also, prescription drugs as opposed to street drugs have been implicated in many celebrity deaths, garnering more and more attention for the problem. People need to be aware of the danger of them so I believe it’s worth mentioning, and it should go without saying that it doesn’t mean everyone isn’t sorry for this young womans untimely demise. You can look it up online as to the opiate/pupil correlation. For the lady above who has a prescription opiate medication for her spinal injury – so do I. I had a broken back. However, my pupils also do not react by becoming tiny, because I do not take them abusively. When a person is in pain and takes prescription meds as prescribed, they do not usually cause a dramatic “pinning” of the eyes, they simply relieve pain. Pain tends to off-set the effect of opiates. Many people not in chronic pain however, take them to get high or feel better. The key phrase here is “under a strong opiate influence” That means she is taking either a very strong opiate, or way too much at one time, or enough to cause her to become under the influence.

Comment by le — January 2, 2010 at 3:17 am

the photo looks weird! Like photoshopped to make her look weirder.maybe it’s a really bad angle. I can’t see the pupils too..

Comment by Venus In Blue Jeans — January 2, 2010 at 11:42 am

Well S thank you for your lecture on opiate pain meds. Since I use mine well within therapeutic dosages, and some days use even less, my pupils are normal. I still don’t see pin-point pupils in her photos that would not be explained by having a camera flashed directly in her eyes. I see many ads in magazines, etc., where the model has small pupils. I think the point is being vastly over-exaggerated and wish this site would take her photos off now out of respect for her kin. Since no cause of death has been publicly released, the speculation is morbid and should cease. Her plastic surgery is kind of a moot point since Proverbs says ‘the grave consumes beauty’. Americans have become GHOULS, pursuing the dead into the tomb!

Comment by Venus In Blue Jeans — January 2, 2010 at 11:46 am

Actually, in the bottom photo where she appears to be blowing a kiss and her head is turned away from the camera, you can see her pupils clearly. Normal size range. Pupils adjust to light instantaneously and when her eyes weren’t ‘caught in the headlights’ her pupils instantly dilated to a larger size, as per normal.

Comment by Kelly — January 2, 2010 at 5:56 pm

well Venus you have commented three times already, so um you seem to be the one pursuing this. let it go yourself.

Comment by Venus In Blue Jeans — January 2, 2010 at 8:47 pm

Hey Kelly, I did not realize there was a limit to how many times I can comment, especially if someone is presenting fallacious and unsubstantiated information. Mind your business. And don’t tell people what to do. Who are you, the awfulplasticsurgery nazi?

Comment by Q — January 3, 2010 at 5:58 pm

Venus, maybe you should actually *read* what you are responding to. We are well aware that you use opiates for a legit medical condition and thus your pupils are of a normal size. That is NOT what S was talking about, though, when they are talking about opiate use

Comment by enigma — January 3, 2010 at 7:05 pm

This picture of her makes me sad. Just the vacant, dead look in her eyes and her generally unkempt appearance depict a girl who, for whatever reason or another, was being destroyed from the inside out. I miss her vivacious personality from ‘Clueless’… even if she was “heavy” for Hollywood’s standards. She was natural then, and beautiful. In fact, I’m surprised that, looking at her deterioration over the years, that no one was able to predict her early demise.

Comment by Candice Pantz — January 3, 2010 at 9:16 pm

In this photo she resembles a raggedy Dyan Cannon: the Ally McBeal years.

Comment by Sono — January 4, 2010 at 6:14 am

WOW, I thought the picture was just some random person with awful plastic surgery, it doesn’t look anything like her.

Comment by Michelle — January 4, 2010 at 8:39 am

How scary, she looks like Octomom!

Comment by Eliza422 — January 5, 2010 at 12:24 am

I”m shocked at how old she looks in this photo – after seeing it and a few of the others she looks at least 10 – 15 years older than her early 30s! That is definitely not the face of a happy woman.

Comment by Carmela — January 5, 2010 at 6:50 am

I’m surprised how old she looked for her age. Pretty, but nowhere near 32! I wa sure she was in her 40s.

Comment by M — January 5, 2010 at 1:01 pm

i both agree and disagree.. i started suspected brittany was using speed as a way of dieting a looong time ago. i remember she did a mtv diaries episode and she was so hyper and ’speedy’. that being said, i have been accused of being high on coke/speed several times myself, even by a drugdealer (!) because of the size of my pupills – and i have never touch drugs in my life! so i say you just never know. she was a sweetheart, that’s more important i think.

Comment by chaz — January 20, 2010 at 9:56 pm

The problem with this article is that pictures of her from her teen years also show small pupils. I think its just the way her eyes were.

We shall see when the autopsy results come out.

Comment by LMP — February 23, 2010 at 2:40 am

Did any body here even bother to read up on what drugs Ms. Murphy was taking? Two of the drugs she was taking may have contributed to her death and both are perfectly legal and perfectly understandable given her condition. She took Klonapin for a long-standing seizure disorder per her family. It is true however, that bulemic’s and anorexics are more prone to non-epileptic seizure disorder, I should know, I’m an recovered anorexic with the same condition. In addition, she took an over the counter cold remedy containing an antihisitime known to interact with Benzodiazapenes. In fact, that very combination played a role in heath Ledger’s accidental overdose. In his case, he was taking 3 different Benzos and combined that with the antihistimine also used in Nyquil. VERY BAD COMBO as some antihistimines, and that one in particular, are known to potentiate the effects of benzos. Potentiate means to prolong the effect and strengthen the effect.

As for the issue of Pupil-pinning, the people crowing about it seem to misunderstand how it works. Opiates don’t make your pupils teensy weensy – what they do is “fix the pupil”, meaning, if a light is shone into the pupil and then taken away, the pupil will have a vastly reduced reaction. The term “fixed” is relative. It doesn’t mean the pupil doesn’t react AT ALL, just that it doesn’t react much. This is one thing cops are checking for when they shine a light into your eyes. They are also looking for other visible indications of various drugs including alcohol and MJ.

One of the very sad things here is that her family seemed to be totally unaware that her seizure meds had the potential to interact with other drugs, including over the counter drugs. I have been off and on a variety of seizure meds over the years and every time my condition or prescription changed, the pharmacist filling my RX sat me down and gave me a warning about drug interactions. Now, maybe the family is just covering with the seizure story, I don’t know. I just know that looking at her pin thin frame, I wasn’t surprised when they said she was on seizure meds. Abusive dieting causes so many imbalances in the body that both cardiac arrest and seizures are common in active anorexics and the seizures can linger for the rest of your life.

What saddened me further was that here was a girl who was perfectly lovely as a normal figured teen but was labeled as “Chubby”. She wound up going down the same Anorexic path that I did and now she’s dead from a drug interaction that could have been prevented. I know the people peddling their story of “pupil pinning” need their rent paid, but really, can’t people just be sad for the real reason the girl’s dead — heavy pressure to be sickly thin leading to seizures plus the flu plus a lack of info about drug interactions. That’s it. She’s gone. Game over. Life is precious and fragile. Next time you fill a prescription, take the 5 minutes to talk to the pharmacist or at least read the interior warning labels in itty bitty print.