Jim Carrey in clear over Irish ex’s death as family’s case is thrown out
A WRONGFUL death lawsuit launched against Jim Carrey by the family of his Irish ex-girlfriend, Cathriona White, has been dismissed in California.
Ms White’s husband and her estranged mother had sued Carrey, claiming he gave her sexually transmitted diseases and provided the drugs she used when she took her life in September 2015, aged 30.
However, the 56-year-old actor’s lawyer claimed Ms White forged medical records to make it appear that she had no STDs before meeting Carrey.
Following the dismissal of the lawsuit, a spokesperson for Carrey confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that the matters were dismissed on January 25, but had no comment to make beyond saying: ‘Jim is looking forward to moving on with his life now.’
Last year the Hollywood star claimed the make-up artist, from Co. Tipperary, had blackmailed him over claims he had given her herpes.
He said that he paid her an undisclosed sum in 2013.
The actor’s lawyer, Raymond Boucher, claimed that Ms White had edited the patient information on a friend’s 2011 STD test to make it seem the records were her own.
Ms White, who dated Carrey on and off for three years, allegedly used the friend’s medical records and changed the name and date on them.
Texts between Ms White and the unnamed friend, submitted as evidence by Carrey’s lawyers, show that she asked the friend to obtain her medical records from reproductive healthcare provider Planned Parenthood.
One text sent from Ms White reportedly reads: ‘I need to see the layout… I will need to work on it before I give it to him.’
Last year Carrey claimed that between March and August 2013, Ms White threatened to ‘go to the press’ with false claims that he had given her STDs unless he paid her ‘millions of dollars’.
He also revealed that he had already paid her an undisclosed sum of money in 2013 to settle her STD claims.
In a note written by Ms White on her iPad in that year, only discovered after her death two years later, she blamed the actor for exposing her to a debauched life of sex and drugs and scorned him for ‘giving her’ herpes.
A text exchange between the couple in January and February of 2013, during their short reconciliation, shows that Ms White had been concerned about bumps on her genitals.
She wrote to the actor that she was worried that it could be symptoms of an STD.
Carrey appears to have attempted to defuse the situation, replying: ‘Aggravated folacles [sic] or bumps are normal when you shave or have vigorous sex.’ A few weeks later, she brought it up again with Carrey, writing that she had found bumps again and wanted to ‘get checked’.
During the subsequent text exchange, Carrey writes: ‘It could be from someone before me.’
The deceased’s estranged husband Mark Burton and her mother Brigid Sweetman had also claimed in their lawsuit that Carrey had illegally obtained and provided Ms White with the drugs she used to take her own life.
Ms White’s autopsy, which was released in July 2016, showed that she died from a fatal overdose of prescription pills including Ambien, propranolol and Percocet.
The lawsuit claimed that bottles of these had been found next to her body, prescribed to an ‘Arthur King’, an alias Ms Sweetman and Mr Burton allege had been used by Carrey.
Michael Avenatti, the lawyer acting for Ms Sweetman and Mr Burton, issued a brief statement on their behalf. It read: ‘We have no further comment at this time.’
In October last year, Carrey filed a counter-suit against his accusers, insisting they were trying to extort him.
In a statement at the time, Carrey said: ‘Unfortunately, I made the mistake three years ago of giving in and settling false claims made against me by Mr [Filippo] Marchino [Ms White’s lawyer], on behalf of Cat, as mounting a public defence is a very costly and painful process.
‘At the time I felt Cat was being exploited by Marchino. Since this new case was filed, I have discovered the depth of deception behind those false claims, the kind of deception decent people fall for, because to us, such behaviour is unimaginable.
‘I will not give in a second time to these same fraudulent charges initiated by Cat’s husband in name but not substance Mark Burton, and her estranged mother. Nor am I responsible for what these desperate characters have inadvertently unearthed about the woman I adored. I was clearly blinded by my affection.
‘Regardless, I will hold a place of empathy, and forgiveness for Cat and continue to focus on the many blessings in this life (sic).’
Ms White, from the small Tipperary village of Cappawhite, was an avid camogie player as a child and teenager.
She had two siblings, James and Lisa, and three half-siblings, and is said to have had a close relationship with her stepmother Bríd, while her relationship with her biological mother – Ms Sweetman, who sued Carrey – was strained.
She qualified as a beauty therapist at the Limerick College of Further Education and moved to Los Angeles in 2009, where she ended up working as a stylist and make-up artist.
Ms White is also reported to have been a Scientologist, having taken several classes at a the Hollywood Celebrity Centre after befriending a group of young people in the entertainment industry who were members of the church.
‘I felt she was being exploited’