Sister of Jim Carrey's Late Girlfriend Speaks Out About Her Family's Devastation

Sarah Molloy wrote an open letter about what she says was an invasion of privacy following the death of sister Cathriona White last September

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The sister of Jim Carrey’s former girlfriend Cathriona White has spoken out for the first time since her unexpected death.

Months after White’s death by suicide, her sister Sarah Molloy wrote an open letter published in the Australian news outlet Blank Gold Coast, speaking out about the family’s turmoil.

“My phone rang and I never even thought that it was too early in Ireland for my family to be calling me. I heard Larina’s [White’s other sister] voice on the other end of the phone, choking back tears as she told me that Cathriona had killed herself. I fell to my knees and asked her what she had said. I was certain I’d misheard,” Molloy wrote in the article published in March.

“It didn’t make any sense. Everything was working out for Cathriona. She was happy. She’d renewed her passport. She was getting a tattoo removed. People who are going to kill themselves don’t get tattoos removed. What the hell was going on?”

White fatally overdosed on prescription medication in September 2015. She was 30.

But before the family had a chance to process the tragedy or inform friends and family of White’s death, Molloy wrote that they immediately began getting contacted by the media – even trying to speak to their 11-year-old brother.

“Within hours of our family finding out that she was gone it was an international story. Cathriona’s closest friends heard the news on radio broadcasts before we had a chance to tell them,” she wrote. “My sister’s death was broadcast by every media outlet on the planet.”

Molloy wrote that one of the hardest things to deal with was the idea of “strangers being entertained” by their grief.

“Imagine having millions of people worldwide voicing opinions on your loss. People saying how stupid she was to kill herself over a man. People saying that it was all his fault. Others saying that it wasn’t his fault and that she had mental health issues that were to blame. People guessing and gossiping publicly and without any knowledge about what had happened.”

At White’s funeral in her native Ireland, Molloy wrote that the family found themselves skeptical by the large turnout.

“At the wake, as hundreds of people came through to pay their respects and offer condolences we couldn’t help but wonder if, somewhere among them, there was a reporter.”

A toxicology and autopsy report obtained by PEOPLE confirmed that the death was a suicide and that White had a variety of prescription pills in her system at the time of her death, including propranolol (a beta blocker used to treat high blood pressure), zolpidem (a sleep aid sold as Ambien), and painkillers oxycodone and oxymorphone.

Following the release of the autopsy, Carrey, 53, spoke out about the detailed information shared in the report.

“When I came to Hollywood to make it as a comedian, I soon learned that the details of my private life would be handed out to the media like free dinner vouchers,” he said in a statement. “I never dreamed that the people I love most in the world would also be on the menu. What a shame.”