One year after Jim Carrey’s girlfriend died of an intentional prescription drug overdose, her estranged husband is suing the actor for allegedly getting her the drugs under a fake name.
The wrongful death suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court on Monday by Mark Burton of Portland, Oregon, alleges that Carrey acted with “reckless disregard of causing serious harm and injury” to Cathriona White, a 30-year-old makeup artist and hairstylist from Ireland whom Carrey had reportedly been dating off and on for about three years. This summer, new details about White’s September 2015 suicide emerged with her autopsy report, including a note addressed to Carrey, with whom she’d split just before her death.
“I’ve spent 3 days now in disbelief that you’re not here. I can go on brokenhearted and try to put the pieces back. I could, I just don’t have the will this time,” the note said. “I’m sorry you felt I wasn’t there for you. I tried to give you my best part.”
Now, Burton’s suit is blaming Carrey in part for White’s suicide, claiming that Carrey exploited his “immense wealth and celebrity status” to get the drugs White used—a beta blocker, Ambien, Percocet, and the opioid painkiller oxymorphone—under the alias Arthur King. (The suit says the Los Angeles coroner found pill bottles prescribed to King in White’s home; Carrey has said she stole the pills from him.) Burton alleges that White had no prescriptions for these drugs, and that Carrey knew White, who had a history of depression, couldn’t manage these kinds of addictive drugs without a doctor’s guidance.
Burton also alleges that Carrey “took steps to conceal and obfuscate his involvement and culpability” by sending White a “bogus message” asking where the drugs were a day before friends found her body. Burton is asking for unspecified damages, plus reimbursements for lawyer’s fees and funeral costs.
Now, two of White’s friends are saying that her marriage to Burton was a sham they both agreed to in order to get her a green card. The Underground Bunker quotes sources who claim White, a Scientologist, tried to get a few different Scientology friends to marry her for immigration purposes before Burton agreed, in part because he had a crush on her.
Carrey says he intends to fight the suit instead of settling with Burton out of court. “It would be easy for me to get in a back room with this man’s lawyer and make this go away,” he said in a statement, “but there are some moments in life when you have to stand up and defend your honor against the evil in this world.” He notes that White’s “troubles” began before they met and challenges the notion that her death was anyone’s fault. “I will not tolerate this heartless attempt to exploit me or the woman I loved,” the statement says. “I really hope that someday soon people will stop trying to profit from this and let her rest in peace.”
