Did Jim Carrey give his young lover the drugs that killed her?
As Hollywood star faces explosive court claims ...
Carrying the coffin in her hometown of Cappawhite, Tipperary, Jim Carrey looked like a broken man at the funeral of his ex- girlfriend Cathriona White. Coverage of the event last October was dominated by pictures of the comedy actor mournfully embracing the family of the woman he had called his ‘ delicate irish flower’.
One of the highest-paid stars of the nineties — and worth £115 million — Carrey is notorious for hogging the camera with his manic style. But some celebrities might have shied away from taking centre stage on this particular day, given the circumstances of Ms White’s death and the nature of Carrey’s involvement.
The pretty 30-year-old make-up artist, who had an on-off affair with Carrey for three years despite having a husband in Oregon, was discovered dead at her Los angeles home from a drug overdose four days after she had broken up with the actor for a second time.
along with pill bottles containing four powerful prescription medicines, she left a suicide note addressed to Carrey in which she said she was ‘broken-hearted’ after a split that had been his decision.
‘i’m sorry you felt i wasn’t there for you. i tried to give you my best part,’ she wrote. ‘Please forgive me. i’m just not for this world.’
The prescription pills turned out to have belonged to 54-year- old Carrey. after years struggling with alcohol and drugs to stave off depression, he publicly insisted he no longer took anything stronger than coffee. But, in truth, he was taking a swathe of prescription drugs and buying them under the pseudonym, we now learn, of arthur King.
The tragedy has left many with an impression of a vulnerable young woman burnt up in the vapour trail of an older Hollywood megastar with a string of failed romances and a hatred of commitment.
Ms White’s family welcomed him with open arms and have never voiced any criticism of Carrey. But others who knew Cathriona — called Cat — were not so taken with the grieving star, who is best known for hit films The Truman Show and Dumb and Dumber.
This week, Cat’s estranged husband, Mark Burton, filed an explosive wrongful death lawsuit against Carrey in Los angeles Superior Court.
Burton, a film cameraman, claims Carrey used his ‘ immense wealth and celebrity status to illegally obtain and distribute highly addictive and . . . controlled substances’ to Ms White knowing she was ‘ill- equipped’ to take them without expert supervision, prone to depression and had previously attempted to take her own life.
after ignoring signs she might be in trouble, Carrey — who was reportedly obsessed with ‘ controlling and manipulating’ Ms White, even spying on her via surveillance cameras at her house, which he owned — allegedly tried to cover up his involvement in her death.
Finally, Carrey promised to pay for his ex-girlfriend’s funeral but, in reality, ‘never paid a dime’.
On THurSDay, Burton’s lawyers amended his complaint with jawdropping new claims — allegedly backed by texts between the couple and a handwritten letter from Ms White — that Carrey gave her three sexually transmitted diseases.
at first Carrey denied this to her, but when she confronted him again he ‘dumped’ her, telling her by text, ‘you have become too much drama’, says the complaint.
‘Carrey, with the help of his powerful lawyers and handlers, sought to degrade, shame and threaten White into staying quiet,’ it adds. after being dumped, Cat described herself as ‘damaged goods’.
Her affliction with venereal disease (two types of herpes and gonorrhea) first dates back to earlier in 2013, so it didn’t end the couple’s relationship for good.
Fearing Cat ‘was about to find out the truth’ about catching the diseases, Carrey began to press her that year to sign an agreement releasing him from any liability for anything that had occured in their relationship, Burton claims.
although Ms White eventually signed it, she detailed in her letter to him how he had failed to apologise and instead she was ‘disrespected, degraded, called a whore, an opportunist, threatened’ and their ‘relationship belittled’.
Ms White, then 27, wrote how ‘this has really changed my life for ever’. But the couple later reunited.
according to the complaint, she ‘continued to struggle emotionally with what Carrey had done’ and ‘ this ultimately was a significant cause’ of her suicide.
However, Carrey’s lawyer said that the claim the star gave Cathriona a sexually-transmitted disease is ‘categorically disputed’.
amid allegations that theirs was a marriage of convenience so Ms White could legally stay in america, questions remain about Burton’s relationship with his wife. Even some of her close friends and relatives didn’t know she was married — and Carrey insists she told him she was separated.
But Burton, 39, was declared her next of kin after her death and given control of her belongings. He said on Thursday ‘people will now learn about the real Jim Carrey and his treatment of women’. Burton urged other women ‘exploited and injured by him and his reckless behaviour to come forward’. He is asking for a jury trial and seeking punitive damages, the cost of the funeral and his legal fees for wrongful death and violation of California’s strict Drug Dealer Liability act, which allows a relative to sue someone who furnishes an ‘illegal controlled substance’ to a user.
THE lawsuit even asks for the immediate seizure of Carrey’s assets, including his private jet. Carrey has called the lawsuit a ‘terrible shame’ and claimed he could have ‘ made it go away’ — implying paying off Burton’s lawyers. instead, the actor is determined to fight his corner.
‘There are some moments in life,’ he said grandly, ‘ when you have to stand up and defend your honour against the evil in this world.’ Ms White’s ‘troubles’, he added, ‘were born long before i met her and sadly her tragic end was beyond anyone’s control’.
His lawyer, Hollywood heavyweight Marty Singer, is more blunt, saying the lawsuit is an ‘outlandish shakedown’ and an ‘abhorrent money-grab scheme’. He said Cathriona only married Burton in Las Vegas in 2013 so she could stay in the u.S and they never lived together (Burton’s lawyer insists the marriage wasn’t a sham and the couple were regularly in touch just before her death).
Carrey never supplied drugs to Ms White, she ‘stole’ them, claims Singer. and they were legally prescribed, he insisted, ‘in accordance with routine practices . . . to protect the privacy of well-known individuals’.
Furthermore, Carrey had never offered to pay the funeral expenses, says Singer.
Question marks hang over Burton’s motives and the strength of some of his claims. But a jury might instinctively take a dim view of the relationship between Carrey and a troubled woman the same age as his daughter.
So, what of the drugs claims? according to Burton — who met Ms White, like him, a Scientologist, when they worked on an obscure TV comedy series — Carrey was able to monitor surveillance cameras at Ms White’s La home.
He alleges Carrey and an assistant could have told from the camera footage that Ms White had gone into her home on September 24 last year and never came out again.
reportedly weighing just 6st, Ms White’s body was found on September 28 by friends and Carrey’s assistant. a coroner ruled she had been dead for several days.
Carrey had sent her text messages on September 27 asking if she had taken some of his prescription drugs. But the texts, say Burton, were ‘bogus’: the film star already knew she was dead and he wanted to protect himself.
as Carrey has admitted the drugs were his, the issue boils down to whether he and his doctor were breaking the law by obtaining them under a false name.
and Burton’s lawyers will be certain to dredge up Carrey’s messy past love life in court. Successive lovers have described Carrey — whose girlfriends have included Bridget Jones star renee Zellweger, Mad Men actress January Jones and Playboy model Jenny McCarthy — as supremely selfish and terrified of commitment.
at his height, the irrepressible star churned out three hit films a year. But squaring up to Mark Burton in a Los angeles court may be one performance he’d prefer not to make.