In the late ’80s and early ’90s, the Kardashians and the Simpsons were inseparable, raising their children together, spending time at each and every other’s houses and jetting off on tropical circle of relatives vacations. But in 1994, after O.J. Simpson was arrested for the homicide of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her buddy Ron Goldman, the whole lot changed. “It tore my circle of relatives apart,” Kim Kardashian recalled in a 2020 interview, explaining that her mom, Kris Jenner, “believed” that Simpson murdered Nicole. “And then we’d go to my dad’s house,” stated Kim, whose late father, Robert Kardashian, represented Simpson in his high-profile homicide trial, “and it used to be an entire other situation there.”
In a verdict that stopped America in its tracks, Simpson was once in the long run discovered not responsible of murdering Nicole and Goldman. But the Kardashians’ lives had been perpetually changed. “O.J. cast a pall of concern and disappointment over all of the circle of relatives,” a former pal of the Kardashians reveals in the latest issue of Us Weekly, adding that prior to his death on Wednesday, April 10 (Simpson were battling prostate cancer), the “risk” that the 76-year-old posed to the truth stars “was one thing that they handled day-to-day.”
Years after Nicole’s homicide, Kim, 43, was approached through a media outlet to talk about her “Uncle O.J.” The former pal says Kim reluctantly agreed to do it — till word were given again to Simpson, who was in the back of bars for stealing sports memorabilia. (In 2008, he was convicted on fees of armed robbery and launched from jail in 2017.) “O.J. had known as her from prison, leaving a simple but menacing voice mail. It said, ‘Kim, it’s Uncle O.J. Hope you’re doing well. I’ll name you quickly,’” recollects the previous good friend. “His tone used to be neutral however firm — the edge was once there. It was a warning, and Kim was terrified.”
She wasn’t the only one. According to the previous buddy, at that time, Jenner, 68, was still involved with a lot of the key players in the murder trial. “[It appeared like] they have been all frightened of Simpson and have been united in maintaining a tally of him for their very own protection,” says the good friend, including that even after Kim made up our minds now not to speak about Simpson, it was once transparent that many “nonetheless regarded as O.J. a certain, unpredictable danger to the protection of them and their households.”
Simpson’s association with the Kardashians continued long after the trial ended, with rumors swirling that he can have been Khloé Kardashian‘s biological father. The Kardashians addressed the theories in a 2012 episode of their long-running reality show — aptly titled “Who’s Your Daddy?” — the place Jenner inspired her daughter to take a DNA check, although Khloé, 39, in the long run decided towards it. Simpson went on to deny the rumors in a 2019 Father’s Day video posted on Twitter, pronouncing, “The easy info of the topic is, she’s no longer mine.”
Robert, an in depth friend of Simpson’s since school, initially believed within the former NFL participant’s innocence — and asked the remainder of the Kardashians for their fortify in his resolution to constitute him within the murder trial. “He wrote us a handwritten letter,” recalled Jenner, “and just stated, ‘Look, I do know you don’t agree with what is taking place here, but this is what I've to do for my friend.…’ It was very tough because my ex-husband was once on one side… I was roughly at the other, the kids were in the center.”
Robert, says the previous buddy, sooner or later discovered that Simpson had lied to him. “He [felt] betrayed and tricked into defending [O.J.] at the maximum publicized trial in historical past. He was once disgusted by way of the truth that O.J. can have murdered two other folks so brutally,” says the pal. “Robert can have won a not guilty verdict for a killer. He was once never the similar once more after that day.”
Thank You!
You have effectively subscribed.
Following the trial, Simpson saved tabs on everybody concerned and would name them in the event that they spoke to a information outlet. “He didn’t omit a story [and would] resurface in the life of any former affiliate who dared to discuss him to the click,” says the former pal. “At this level, O.J. was once a loose man, and everyone used to be deeply afraid of incurring his wrath.”
Now that Simpson’s long past, the Kardashians can breathe a sigh of relief, but it'll never alternate the uneasiness they lived with for decades. “The lack of Nicole [has] by no means [been] far away,” says the friend, revealing that photos of Nicole and the children — Sydney, 38, and Justin, 35, — she shared with Simpson remained on the walls of Jenner’s place of business for years. “The family continues to be… haunted via the horrible finish she had confronted,” adds the former circle of relatives friend. “But they’re loose from O.J.’s threats now.”
For more on O.J. and the Kardashians, watch the unique video above — and pick up the most recent issue of Us Weekly, on newsstands now.
ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tr%2FMmp6aspmjsm%2BvzqZmnJ2cmq%2BztdOyZKedp6h8r7HWrGaoZZpiwKq5z6ymp2WgpMCmsIyupamqlZm2pMDAm6OeZaSdv6at02arqGWblr%2BlrdKhoJqmo2KzsL6MnZycmZSawHA%3D