Brittany Murphy's husband, British screenwriter Simon Monjack, told television show Access Hollywood this week that the actress was sick and maybe a bit worn down at the time of her death Sunday morning.

He said she had recently seen a doctor and that she was just coming off a year in which several of her films were in the can. (KTLA News' Sam Rubin reported that she had completed work in five movies at the time of her demise). “She had laryngitis,” Monjack said. “She had been tired at the end of the year. She had made a couple movies.”

Monjack also took exception to rumors that he was a bad influence on her.

“I don't know why anyone would think that,” he told the show. “She found love. We found love. Brittany didn't get to where Brittany was with anyone controlling her… Brittany was Brittany.”

The actress was having a bad month. In late November she was reportedly removed from a movie, The Caller, being shot in Puerto Rico (her publicist says the parties both decided to part ways), and her agent reportedly fired her. When Monjack returned to LAX from Puerto Rico, paramedics rushed him to a hospital for reasons unknown. Then, on Dec. 5, comedy show Saturday Night Live ran a spoof of Murphy, painting her as disoriented and perhaps disillusioned. It made fun of her split with the The Caller. The show has since removed a clip of the spoof form the NBC co-owned website Hulu.

Murphy was taken to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in cardiac arrest Sunday morning. She was pronounced dead there at 10:04 a.m. TMZ reported that many prescription drugs were found at her home.