If the glove fits …
On Thursday, news broke that O.J. Simpson died at age 76 after a battle with cancer.
He’s remembered for his past in the NFL and his stint in Hollywood – but, he’s most infamous for his 1994 televised police chase in his white Bronco, his 1995 murder trial and subsequent acquittal for killing his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman and his relationship to the Kardashian family.
Before the Kardashians became the most famous family in the world with a reality TV empire, they already had deep ties to the athlete and his late wife.
In this 1994 snap, the Kardashian family can be seen with O.J. and Nicole during their Easter vacation to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico.
Kim, Kourtney and Khloe are all shown smiling. O.J., Nicole, her sister Dominique Brown, and the Simpson children, Justin and Sydney, are also in the photo. Rounding it out are Kris Jenner and her then-spouse, Caitlyn Jenner.
Nicole would be killed just three months later, in June of that year.
Robert Kardashian Sr. was his lawyer — having become friends with Simpson in college — and ultimately got Simpson acquitted, in a controversial ruling that “The View” deemed “an injustice” on Thursday.
The families were so close that Khloe even said she grew up calling him “Uncle O.J.” and Nicole “Aunt Nicole.”
In the documentary “Who Killed Nicole?” Simpson’s former manager Norman Pardo claimed that Simpson bragged about having an affair with Kris while they were each married to their respective spouses, Nicole and Robert.
There were even rumors that Simpson was Khloe’s real father, which Kris has denied.
In a 2015 interview with ABC News’ “20/20,” Lawrence Schiller, author of “American Tragedy: The Uncensored Story of the O.J. Simpson Defense,” claimed that before his Bronco freeway chase on June 17, 1994, Robert Kardashian Sr. found Simpson sitting in Kim’s childhood bedroom recording “a suicide tape” and holding onto photos of Nicole and their children.
“Then O.J. said, ‘I’m going to kill myself in this room,’ and I said, ‘You can’t. This is my daughter’s bedroom,’” Robert told Schiller in a past recorded interview. “‘My little girl Kim sleeps here. I can’t have my little girl in this bedroom, and every time I come in here, I’m going to see your body lying in this. You can’t do that.’”
Here’s a look back at the what the top reality TV family has said about OJ Simpson through the years.
Kris Jenner
Robert Kardashian Sr., who died of cancer in 2003, married Kris Jenner in 1978 and had daughters Kourtney, Kim, Khloé and son Rob, before their 1991 divorce (Kris then married Bruce Jenner, now Caitlyn, in 1991 and the couple had Kendall and Kylie before their 2015 divorce).
“The only thing I discuss with [Robert] is the children, we just keep it about the kids,” she told Good Morning America in September 1995. “Because I think what would happen is our opinions are so obviously black and white, that what is that going to do?”
During a 2009 interview with Dr. Phil, Kris said that Robert wrote her a letter before the trial. According to Kris, he said, “’Look, I know you don’t agree with what is going down here, but this is what I have to do for my friend.’”
Kris further said that the trial was “devastating” for her family.
“You have Robert Kardashian on the defense team defending [O.J.’s] team, and you have me, my girlfriend’s dead,” she said, since she had been close with Nicole Brown Simpson, who O.J. was accused of murdering along with her friend Ronald Goldman.
“It was a very difficult situation and what we needed to do was band together as a family and decide that this isn’t going to tear us apart.”
Kris also said that she believed Nicole Brown Simpson.
“Nicole had been beaten up by O.J. and she had been keeping this physical proof in the form of photographs and, it would turn out, other evidence, in which she had documented 17 years of abuse,” Kris wrote in her 2011 memoir, “Kris Jenner … and All Things Kardashian.”
Kris has slammed rumors that she had an affair with O.J., and that he was Khloe’s father,
“They printed a story that I was sleeping with O.J.,” Jenner said on a 2019 episode of “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.”
“That f – – king piece of s – – t. It’s really kind of pathetic that when rumors get started the media gives it life and breath and on the anniversary of Nicole’s death. It’s so tasteless and disgusting.”
Caitlyn Jenner
“Obviously he did it, and he got away with it, and at one point he even told Nicole, ‘I’ll kill you and get away with it ’cause I’m O.J. Simpson,’” Jenner alleged, according to an excerpt of the “Big Brother VIP” broadcast posted to YouTube in 2021.
The Fox News contributor also told Jimmy Kimmel that she hadn’t seen O.J since Nicole’s funeral in 1994 and even once banned the Kardashian-Jenner kids from talking about O.J. after the trial.
“That night the verdict came in, Kourtney and Kimberly were in school and obviously they loved their father — and they should — and they’d been following this for a year and a half,” Jenner explained on UK reality series “I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here!”
In her memoir, “The Secrets of My Life,” Jenner wrote about the famed O.J. trial and claimed the late Robert Kardashian Sr., who served as one of Simpson’s defense attorneys during the proceedings, suggested that he believed the running back committed the crimes.
“‘I would’ve been OK with it if they had gotten him in the first trial,’” Jenner claimed Kardashian told her. “The implication was obvious that he believed O.J. was guilty.
“I believe [Simpson] got away with two savage murders.”
In her book, she also called Simpson, “the most narcissistic, egocentric, neediest ass in the world of sports I had ever seen.”
On Thursday, after news broke about Simpson’s death, Jenner posted on X, formerly Twitter, “Good Riddance #OJSimpson.”
Khloe Kardashian
“O.J. was always our Uncle O.J., Nicole was my Auntie Nicole,” Khloe, who was 9 at the time of the trial, told “E! True Hollywood Story” in 2009.
“You don’t really know what to believe or how to perceive it … It’s sad to see your parents go through so much pain for trying to be true friends.”
In 2016, she told “Access Hollywood,” that “Kourtney and Kim would go to court with my dad all the time. They were much more involved. We were kids. I think I was 8 or something, so we’re all sheltered from that … So, I don’t remember it as vividly as Kourtney and Kim do.”
However, Khloe has refused to publicly say if she thought OJ was guilty.
During a 2017 appearance on “The Late Late Show with James Corden,” Khloe participated in a segment called “Spill Your Guts or Fill Your Guts,” in which celebs had to answer questions, or else eat a disgusting food.
When Corden asked, “Do you think OJ did it?” Khloe consumed a fish eye rather than answer that question.
FilmMagic
Kim Kardashian
“I definitely took my dad’s side. We just always thought my dad was the smartest person in the world, and he really believed in his friend,” Kim told Rolling Stone in 2015.
In October 2020, Kim told David Letterman, “My mom was extremely vocal on her feelings — she believed that her friend was murdered by him and that was really traumatizing for her.”
She said the situation “tore my family apart” at the time, because, “Then we’d go to my dad’s house and it was a whole other situation there.”
She added, “I just respect his children,” referring to O.J. and Nicole’s kids, Sydney, 38, and Justin, 35.
“So if I were to say something that would hurt someone’s feelings publicly — unless they’re coming for me and I have to defend myself or a family member — then I’m aware,” she said.
However, despite saying that she wouldn’t comment on it, when she hosted “Saturday Night Live” in October 2021, in her monologue, she said, “It’s because of [my father] that I met my first Black person.”
“Want to take a stab in the dark at who it was? I know it’s sort of weird to remember the first Black person you met, but O.J. does leave a mark or several, or none at all,” she went on. “I still don’t know.”
Nicole’s sister, Tanya Brown, slammed the joke as being, “in poor taste.”
