OJ Simpson and the Kardashian Clan: A Complicated Story

It was an illustrious circle of friends that surrounded OJ Simpson in the 1980s and early 1990s. Simpson’s closest confidants at the time included Kris Jenner (formerly Kardashian) and her ex-husband Robert Kardashian. However, the friendship between the two men began much earlier, decades before the families settled in the luxury neighborhood of Brentwood, Los Angeles.

OJ Simpson and Robert Kardashian met at university

Robert Kardashian and Orenthal James Simpson, known as OJ, met when Kardashian worked for the University of Southern California’s football team, the Trojans. Simpson was the team’s superstar at the time and played the running back position. According to Slate magazine, the two became friends a few years later. Kardashian was the one who helped Simpson make a name for himself in the entertainment industry.

In the 1970s, Kardashian, the son of Armenian immigrants, and Kris Houghton (now Jenner) became a couple. At their wedding in 1978, Simpson was even part of the ceremony, so close were he and Attorney Kardashian to one another. Simpson himself was still married to Marguerite Whitley at the time, but the marriage collapsed in the late 1970s.

When Kris Kardashian was pregnant with her first child, Kourtney Kardashian, her good friend OJ met waitress Nicole Brown. “Nicole brought OJ a lot of happiness – you could see it. She brightened his life. They were a golden couple,” she told Slate. The four friends – the Kardashian couple, OJ Simpson and Nicole Brown (later Brown Simpson) became inseparable. They went on vacation together, the Kardashian children even called OJ “Uncle OJ.”

While the two men had been close friends for a long time, the friendship between the women also became steadily closer. What Kris Kardashian didn’t know at the time: Simpson was an abusive husband. “A lot of people have said to me over the years, ‘Man, Nicole is so secretive, so aloof.’ I always said, ‘No, Nicole is just shy.’ Now I look back and see that Nicole… had to keep her distance because she’s been through a lot,” the current manager said, according to Slate.

Kardashians and Simpsons were close friends

But the era of the Kardashian-Simpson clique was not meant to last. Kris and Robert divorced in 1991, four years after the birth of their fourth child together, Rob Kardashian. And the Simpsons’ marriage had long since been doomed to failure. Kris knew then what her best friend was going through behind closed doors. “He did all these things. But she still left the door ajar, so he had to make it up to get in, and then he was so relieved. That happened a lot,” she once said. In 1992, the Simpsons divorced after an on-off marriage. Two years later the horror: On the night of June 12, 1994, a walker discovered the victims who had been stabbed many times – Nicole Brown Simpson and her acquaintance Ronald Goldman – in pools of blood in front of Brown’s house in Brentwood in Los Angeles.

Suspicion fell on ex-husband Simpson and there was an arrest warrant. On June 17, 1994, Simpson was supposed to turn himself in to authorities, but fled in a white Ford Bronco. Simpson sat in the back seat and at times held a gun to his temple. Helicopters and police cars followed the cars on the freeway in Los Angeles, and the entire nation watched the spectacle live on television. The hunt finally ended in front of Simpson’s villa, where the then 46-year-old surrendered. He came to court and protested his innocence.

The court case also became a media spectacle and put another man in the spotlight alongside Simpson: Robert Kardashian. As a lawyer, the father of Kourtney, Kim, Khloé and Rob was part of the ex-athlete’s defense team. So he became an enemy not only for everyone who saw Simpson as a murderer, but also for his ex-wife. Kris Jenner, now newly married to track and field superstar Caitlyn Jenner (then known as Bruce Jenner), stuck by her close friend, the dead Nicole, beyond death.

The trial drove a wedge between the family

“Just before the trial began, Robert sat down and wrote us a handwritten letter saying, ‘I know you don’t agree with what’s happening here, but this is what I have to do for my friend ‘” she said in 2009 on Dr. Phil. “He believed in what he was doing and he asked for our support,” Jenner said. The time was “devastating” for her family.

Their children were also torn. “I was definitely on my dad’s side,” Kim Kardashian told Rolling Stone magazine. “We always thought my father was the smartest person in the world and he really believed in his friend,” said the entrepreneur. Khloé Kardashian put it more diplomatically to E Entertainment. “It’s sad to see your parents go through so much pain just because they tried to be true friends,” she said.

After the controversial acquittal, it was Caitlyn Jenner who had to explain to the children that an acquittal does not automatically mean that the person is actually innocent. Kris Jenner showed how important Nicole Brown Simpson was to her after the birth of her fifth child, today’s supermodel Kendall Jenner. Her middle name is Nicole. “I’m honored to have this name,” Kendall Jenner once said. It was only a small satisfaction for the victims’ families when Simpson was found guilty in a civil trial in 1997 and ordered to pay a fine worth millions.

It would be a few more years before Kim Kardashian, then assistant to her good friend Paris Hilton, brought her family into the spotlight again – this time for a more innocuous scandal. In 2007, a sex tape appeared that Kardashian had filmed with her ex-boyfriend Ray J, which she – and manager Kris Jenner – cleverly capitalized on. Jenner, who is the manager of all her children, herself suggested a reality show about her family life. “Keeping up with the Kardashians” was born. At the time, Kourtney, Kim and Khloé were still the owners of a fashion boutique in the posh Calabasas district. Thanks to their mother’s smart business decisions and a deep understanding of social media, they became the most famous influencers and entrepreneurs of our time.

Very few people think of OJ Simpson these days when they hear the name Kardashian. Over the years, the family tried to distance themselves from “Uncle OJ.” That wasn’t always easy. For years there were rumors that Kris Jenner had an affair with Simpson and that Khloé Kardashian was not Robert Kardashian’s daughter, but Simpson’s. In 2019, he clarified on .”

Sources: / / “E Entertainment” / dpa

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