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Beaten? That’s Hard to Believe!

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One neighbor recalls a scorching day when Nicole was wearing a heavy shawl. “The shawl slipped, and I saw faint bruises on her right arm,” he says. “She said she’d been knocking around with the kids and things got a little rough.” 

The neighbor was aware of O.J.’s jealous rages, but he immediately dismissed the notion of physical abuse.

“She was a ballsy woman.” he says. “You couldn’t imagine that she’s take that stuff.”

But in September 1986, Nicole came to the attention of someone who could – and did – recognize signs of possible abuse. Nicole later wrote in her diary that after she and O.J. returned home from an evening with friends, “[O.J.] beat me up so bad… [he] tore my blue sweater and blue slacks completely off me.”

Nicole’s head was so badly bruised that O.J. drove her to a local hospital, where she told the physician treating her – Dr Martin Alpert – that she had had a bicycle accident.

As he told investigators, Dr. Alpert did not believe Nicole’s explanation. It is not known whether he reported his suspicions; only in 1993 did it become a misdemeanor under California law to fail to report domestic abuse.

What is clear is that the state judicial system failed to protect Nicole.

At around 4 a.m. on January 1 1989, John Edwards and another police officer responded to a 911 call: “At 360 North Rockingham, woman being beaten.” As Edwards recounted in his police reports and his gripping court testimony, when he arrived at the Simpsons’ home, an hysterical Nicole ran to him screaming, “He’s going to kill me!”

Her lip cut, her cheeks swollen, her eye blackened, “she clung onto me,” Edwards continued. “She was beat up.” Nicole yelled to the police, “You guys never do anything about him.”

Emerging from his house in his bathrobe, O.J. spewed obscenities at the officers, and when they told him they were taking him to the police station, he shouted, “You’ve been out here eight times before, and you’re going to arrest me for this?”

O.J. was charged with assault, but he suffered few consequences. Former police officer Ron Shipp, who’d received special training in domestic violence, testified at the trial that Nicole had called him a few days after the incident and asked him to talk to O.J. about his violent behavior.

Though Shipp told Simpson that he fit the police profile of a batterer, he also listened to the pleas of his idol to help squelch the case and spoke to a police supervisor on O.J.’s behalf.

It’s unlikely that Shipp wielded much influence, but the L.A. courts did seem loath to prosecute. O.J. pleaded no contest to the spousal abuse charge.

Municipal court Judge Ronald R. Schoenberg did not impose a stiff punishment. Simpson was ordered to pay $470 in fines and penalty and $500 to a shelter for battered women.

Directed to receive domestic violence counseling, Simpson was allowed to choose his own therapist, and in September, when he moved to New York City to work for NBC as a football commentator, the judge permitted O.J. to continue his sessions by phone.

Deputy city attorney Alana Bowman said that out of the 20,000 domestic violence cases her office handles each year, O.J. was the only defendant allowed to undergo counseling by phone.

Though Nicole repeatedly called the police for help, no other records of O.J.’s assaulting her have surfaced. There is speculation that O.J. talked the police out of filing such reports…

It would seem that after the 1989 incident, the Brown family finally had the evidence they needed to prevail upon Nicole to get out of the marriage. Denise had, at Nicole’s request, taken a photograph of her bruised face, which Nicole locked away in her safe-deposit box.

Meanwhile, both O.J. and Nicole told the Browns how deeply they loved each other and that they were determined to work things out.

The violence they both swore, was finished. In fact the beatings had not been a constant in their relationship. “It’s hard to believe,” says a friend, “but it wasn’t the norm. There was a lot of good. There was a lot of fun.”

The violence was real but sporadic. “There is a great myth,” says domestic violence authority Gelles, “that abusive husbands are abusive 24 hours a day, 52 weeks a year. They are not.”

Facing the Rage for People Magazine (February 20 1995)

Last Christmas?

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  O.J. and Nicole Simpson spent a joyous last Christmas together.

Just one year ago, the doomed couple, hugged and toasted their future together as they celebrated the holiday with friends and family at the football great’s $5-million Brentwood estate.

No one thought then that the beautiful Nicole wouldn’t live to see another Christmas.

Cora Fischman, Nicole’s neighborhood jogging partner and closest confidante, says she has wondered “a million times” since then how it all went so wrong.

“I’ve cried so many times over Nicole,” Cora tells STAR. “But it’s going to be extremely hard to get through Christmas without her this year.”
“I’ll never forget how she made shopping for presents so much fun,” says Cora Fischman.

“I expected we’d shop in Beverley Hills. But Nicole said, ‘Oh Cora, that’s crazy. We can save lots of money by going downtown.’ So we drove there instead, and went to all these terrific little stores that sold T-shirts by the dozen and toys at a discount.

“Instead of Neiman Marcus, Nicole led me around places like Toys ‘R’ Us and Target. And she shopped for everyone – not just her kids and family, but her housekeeper, the gardener and mailman, as well as Jason and Arnelle.”

Although Nicole, 35, was receiving $120,000-a-year child support from O.J. and lived in a $700,000 condo on Brentwood’s Bundy Drive, she always stayed within her budget when it came to shopping, says Cora.

It was O.J.’s idea to organize the festive gathering with Cora and her family.

They sat down to champagne and caviar while the kids feasted on pasta and chicken from Rosti, their neighborhood Italian takeout restaurant.

The highlight of the evening for the kids – with O.J. – was the opening of the presents.

With Nicole taking everyone to the Browns for Christmas lunch, O.J. treated this get-together as his family Christmas.

Nicole and Cora had decided in advance to be “sensible” and keep their presents to one another under $100.

“So Nicole gave me a fake Chanel zippered pouch,” says Cora. “I still carry it with me everyday. I gave her a huge jewelry box covered with a tapestry print that came just under the limit at $99.99. Nicole loved it.”

Cora says: “Nicole absolutely loved Christmas and always insisted it should be spent with her family. She told me, ‘It’s a time for bringing loved ones together. It’s important that the kids spend Christmas with their mother and father.’

“I wonder how O.J. feels this Christmas. I wonder if his thoughts will drift back to last year and he’ll remember how close we all felt that night.

“For me, Christmas won’t be the same without Nicole. My heart goes out to Sydney and Justin. Nicole made every Christmas so special for them.”

Star Magazine (December 27 1994)

Can I Buy a Ticket to Ride?

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On Sunday, June 12, 1994, O.J. Simpson did or did not drive to his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson’s pad and slaughter her and a young man named Ronald Goldman.

He did or did not wear gloves and a ski mask; he did or did not butcher his victims with a bone-handled knife, a bayonet or an entrenching tool.

He did or did not split the scene and drive to his own home, a few minutes away.

Nicole Brown Simpson was or was not a devoted mother, a cocaine addict and an airhead party girl.

She was or was not an anorexic, a bulimic or a nymphomaniac given to picking up men at a Brentwood espresso pit.

The minutiae of her life can be compiled and collated to conform to almost any sleazy thesis.

She is most unambiguously defined by this heavily documented fact: O.J. Simpson beat the shit out of her over the last five years of her life.

Nicole wanted a groovy fast lane and the secondhand celebrity that comes with fucking famous men. Her second-tier status extended to her death.

She became the blank page that pundits used to explicate her husband’s long journey of suppression.

Nicole bought a ticket to ride. The price was nakedly apparent long before she died.

Her face was pinched and crimped at the edges – too-pert features held too taut and compressed by too many bouts of cocaine, too many compulsive gym workouts and too much time given over to maintaining a cosmetic front.

Her beauty was not the beach-bunny perfection revered by stupid young men and the man who may or may not have murdered her.

The physical force of Nicole Brown Simpson is the glaze of desiccation writ large on her face.

The lines starting to form might have been caused by inchoate inner struggles, or the simple process of aging, or a growingly articulate sense that she had boxed herself into an inescapable corner of obsessive male desire, random male desire, and a life of indebtedness to things meretricious and shallow.

Nicole’s relationship with O.J. was deceptive and collusive from the start.

He bought the hot blonde that fifty years of pop culture told him he should groove on, and an unformed psyche that adapted to his policy of one-way monogamy.

She bought a rich, handsome, famous man possessed of infantile characteristics, which led her to believe that she could control him.

He bought a trip through his unconscious and a preordained mandate for horror.

She abdicated to an inner drama that would ultimately destroy her.

James Ellroy Sex, Glitz and Greed The Seduction of O.J. Simpson

GQ Magazine (December 1994)

Love YOU? Don’t Be SO Stupid!

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“When Marcus holds me in his big, powerful arms, I just melt. No man has ever treated me like this before me. I get excited just thinking about him.”

With those tender words, O.J. Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole revealed to a close friend the secret afternoons of passion she and football superstar Marcus Allen shared – behind the backs of both O.J. and Marcus’ fiancee Kathryn.

The world learned about the red-hot affair from her best pal Faye Resnick, who mentions it in her new book, “Nicole Brown Simpson: The Private Diary of a Life Interrupted.”

Now an exclusive ENQUIRER investigation has uncovered the intimate details that not even Faye knew.

Although Marcus was pals with O.J., that didn’t stop him from pursuing O.J.’s ex-wife, said Nicole’s friend.

“Marcus and Nicole began as friends. He used to come by her house two or three times a week.

But starting in February 1993, their relationship changed – and that spring, Nicole told me that she and Marcus had become lovers.”

It was one of the happiest times of her life.

“One time I went to Nicole’s house and there was a large bouquet of fresh wildflowers in the kitchen. She said, ‘Marcus gave them to me. He’s so sweet.'”

Nicole especially appreciated the way Marcus treated her after she had suffered at the hands of wife-beater O.J., said her friend.

“She told me, ‘O.J. treats me like a child. He’s always telling me a stupid. But Marcus likes me as a person. He thinks I’m beautiful and he knows I have a brain!'”

Marcus encouraged Nicole to get out from under O.J.’s shadow, revealed her friend.

However, Marcus abruptly ended the affair in June 1993 after he married Kathryn – in a wedding at O.J.’s estate.

“Nicole was crushed,” said her friend.

Marcus denied the affair after Resnick and her coauthor Enquirer gossip columnist Mike Walker, revealed it in their book.

But Nicole herself told her friend, “If Marcus would just stand up and proclaim his love for me publicly, I’d marry him in a minute!”

The National Enquirer (November 8 1994)

Another Addict? How Tragic!

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STAR has pieced together the shocking story of Nicole’s sexual adventures from her closest friends and a new tell-all book by pal Faye Resnick, Nicole Brown Simpson: The Private Diary of a Life Interrupted, published by Dove.

Mother-of-two Nicole, 35, “threw off the shackles” and was like “a woman reborn” after legally separating from O.J. in the spring of 1992, say several of her friends.

For eight years of marriage she endured her famous husband’s cheating, bullying and boasts that there were “50 million women out there who want O.J. Simpson.”

Yet, she never fooled around once and counseled her married friends against extramarital affairs.

“She was totally opposed to infidelity of any kind,” says a friend.

“Her view was that just because O.J. cheated on her, it wouldn’t make things right by her turning the tables on him. She never did while they were man and wife.

“But once they separated, it was an entirely different ball game. She was free to date guys and she certainly didn’t waste any time.”

In her blockbuster book, Faye Resnick says: “She enjoyed, actually needed sex. But it was also Nic’s way to escape from pain. Men were her drug of choice.

“It wasn’t until her marriage to O.J. started falling apart that she began to rely on sex as both a weapon and an opiate.”

As revealed exclusively in the last issue of STAR, that man was O.J.’s bosom buddy and football protege, Marcus Allen.

We told how Nicole started a six-month affair with the handsome football star after breaking up with O.J. But, we revealed, she played down the depth of their passion when she was forced to admit to O.J. that she was seeing Allen.

The affair, claims Resnick, that had petered out after Marcus became engaged to his future bride, Nike model Kathy Eickstaedt, was in full bloom at the time of the murders. And she says, this was a possible reason for O.J.’s rage.

Shortly before the savage June 12 slayings of Nicole and her waiter friend Ronald Goldman, Resnick claims she saw Allen’s car parked outside the Bundy Drive condo.

And in a phone conversation a few hours before the murders she adds:

“Nicole was on cloud nine. I knew how she got when she was going to be with him. 

I asked Nic, ‘Are you seeing Marcus?’ She replied: ‘Well, I’ve seen him.'”

Star Magazine (November 1 1994)

Intimidate or Manipulate? NO!

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During the months after her separation from O.J., Nicole Brown, as she preferred to be known, cut a glam figure, running errands in skintight Lycra exercise togs and working out at the Gym with the muscle-bound young men of Brentwood, among them Ron Goldman.

What can you say about poor Goldman?

He may have hoped to use Brown’s connections to get a restaurant going. The two nightclubbed together, and by now, of course, everyone knows of Nicole’s fondness for throwing back tequila and dancing until the wee hours.

Her detractors point to this as evidence of dissolution. More likely, she was giddy after having spent fifteen years under the thumb of O.J. Simpson.

Why did Nicole surround herself with the vacuous likes of Kato Kaelin and Ron Goldman?

She probably enjoyed sticking it to her ex. She probably also enjoyed being around men who were adoring and pliant and, above all, young.

Regardless of the media’s fondness for portraying her as a slightly older version of the teen whom O.J. lifted from obscurity, Nicole Brown was in a mid-thirties.

Her later photos betray crow’s-feet and incipient crepe neck. She was edging toward that time of life when a woman, if she is lucky, “looks awfully good for her age.”

Nicole may have been in a grip of a certain desperation to recover lost years.

She did not recover them very successfully.

Whatever satisfactions she enjoyed during the thirteen months of her liberation from O.J. were offset by financial worries.

Although she received $10,000 a month in child support, plus a divorce settlement of more than $400,000, she was unable to sustain the life to which she had been accustomed.

In the early months of 1993, Nicole started seeing a West Hollywood therapist who suggested that her “body language” might have encouraged O.J. to hit her. She spent four sessions trying to correct that, then began intensive counseling to boost her self-esteem.

At the end of it, she announced to friends, “I want my husband back.”

According to Paula Barbieri, the Victoria’s Secret model with whom O.J. occupied himself during the separation and divorce, Nicole began pursuing O.J., “writing him letters and showing up places.”

O.J. reportedly hesitated, but not for long. The divorce had humiliated him even more than his arrest for spousal battery.

They began “dating” again around March 1993. O.J. was exuberant about the reconciliation, which, he doubtless felt, would set the record straight: The Juice never lost his woman.

What precipitated the final breakup is not known.

Browne and Francis, authors of Juice, report the Simpsons’ cook as saying that the couple had been to Spago, where a couple of men began flirting with Nicole. By the time they got home, O.J. had turned into a “vicious, terrifying monster” who tore of her dress and called her a “slut.”

This version has the overheated quality of a bodice ripper. A likelier scenario, supported by intelligence from the AA circuit, is that Nicole was bringing her drug-taking under control and could finally make a sober decision.

Is this the moment O.J. decided on murder?

I don’t think so. I doubt that O.J., addled with ego and drugs, ever heard the word no.

Right up until the end, he thought there was room to cajole, intimidate, and otherwise manipulate Nicole into a reconciliation.

Theresa Carpenter Esquire Magazine (November 1994)

That Was Just Nicole!

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The high school field trip was California all the way: a psychology class spending a weekend on Santa Catalina island, that balmy resort 23 miles off the Pacific coast, with no apparent goal except, perhaps, to study the stress-reducing effects of sunning and swimming.

But two of the students had other ideas. A few hours after the class and teacher were dropped off at some cabins on the far side of the island, the boat that had brought them made a return trip, circling back to pick up two girls who seemed to have prearranged their departure.

With no explanation, off went a junior named Nicole Brown, who with her sun-drenched blond hair and tan could have been the prototype of the California girl, and her equally stunning, dark-haired sister Denise, a senior.

The girls went to the island’s main town of Avalon, where they spent the weekend on their own instead of with their classmates.

“They just wanted to go into town for the weekend and have a good time,” says Ron Kosmala, a classmate who recently recalled the trip. No one seemed to mind that they were gone. “That’s just the way they were,” he says. “That was just Nicole and Denise.”

Once upon a time in her two-short life, Nicole Brown was able to come and go as she pleased. A beautiful young woman, she had freedom, she had control. But that Catalina weekend may have been one of the last times Nicole called the shots.

Only two years later she would meet O.J. Simpson at a nightclub in Beverly Hills, and from that moment on – until she died on her front walk, with her children sleeping inside – her life was dominated by the overpowering personality of her husband.

Escape preoccupied her during her last few years, and certainly her last few weeks. Although her beauty, wealth and social status inspired more than a little envy, what she desired more than anything, by the end, was a simple life away from the cameras, the hype, the glitz, away from the real egos and fake smiles.

“Everybody looks at you and thinks, ‘Wow, would I ever like to be her,'” Nicole’s friend Jean McKenna, who was once married to a professional athlete, told Dateline NBC.

“And yet, people like Nicole and myself, we really would have liked to have been the people who were looking at us. We would rather be the normal wife who had a husband who came home every night. It’s just not that wonderful a life.”

Nicole Brown Simpson learned that celebrity marriages can be dark and lonely and more confining than they look. Marriage to a wealthy, well-known man can be “a trap, and that’s the truth,” says Nicole’s long-time friend Robin Greer, an actress who was once wed to such a man herself.

“When you first walk into the house, it’s impressive. But once you’re behind closed doors, if the relationship isn’t healthy, the house doesn’t matter anymore. Everybody else is only seeing the outside of the house. No woman, unless she’s really materialistic or very weak, would enjoy that.”

As it turns out, Nicole Simpson wasn’t just trapped in life – in the role of living, breathing success symbol and blond elbow-adornment – she is also trapped in death. She has been remembered not as herself, but as the wife that the athlete/sportscaster/pitchman would sometimes beat and is now accused of brutally murdering.

In press reports, Ronald Goldman, the other victim, has suffered the humiliation of being a double possessive – O.J.’s ex-wife’s friend – but the woman he died with spent half a lifetime stalled in similar anonymity.

“You’re always So-and So’s wife, Mrs. So-an-So; you get reduced to your last name,” says Greer.

Friends claim she was on the verge of reclaiming the “Brown” in her name, and all that it stood for: the warm, giving, free person who had gotten last 17 years earlier.

Nicole Brown Simpson Her Story ~ Jeannie Ralston Glamour Magazine (October 1994)

You’ve Got IT Coming!

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O.J. came to pick up kids at 8.30 p.m. they wanted to stay home cuz I let them organize sleep overs at last minute – thought Daddy wasn’t coming – told O.J. I’d drop them off 1st thing in the a.m.

He said OK then…

“You hang up on me last nite, you’re gonna pay for this bitch, you’re holding money from the IRS, you’re going to jail you fucking cunt.

You think you can do any fucking thing you want, you’ve got it comming  – I’ve already talked to my lawyers about this bitch – they’ll get you for tax evasion bitch.

“I’ll see to it. You’re not gonna have a fucking dime left, bitch “etc”

This was all being said as Sydney’s girlfriend Allegra was being dropped off – they may have already walked into the house.“


Diary Entry of Nicole Brown Simpson Friday June 3 1994

When we showed the pages to Nicole’s father, Lou Brown, he was shocked that we had been able to track them down.

“That is her personal diary that she kept at her condo,” he said, his voice cracking with emotion. “This is definitely Nicole’s hand-writing.” 

Returning the document with trembling hands, he refused further comment.

But Nicole’s writings say more about her tortured life than anyone ever could.

Added Dr. Lynn M. Appleton, a Florida Atlantic University sociology professor and expert on domestic violence, “Nicole’s heartbreaking story is typical of what thousands of women suffer every day in America.

“She left behind a testament that will give a battered women a new voice in the battle against domestic violence.”

The National Enquirer (October 25 1995)

 

Beyond a Shadow of a Doubt – WHO Cares?

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Nicole Simpson’s parents are convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that O.J. murdered their daughter – and they’ve banned him from talking to his two children.

When O.J. phones from jail he isn’t even allowed to say hello to daughter Sydney, 8, and son Justin 6, who are living with their grandparents Louis and Judi Brown. He can only leave messages for the youngsters on the family’s answering machine.

“We believe O.J. is guilty,” Nicole’s mom Judi told a friend.

As the ex-football star’s murder case rages in Los Angeles, Sydney and Justin are out of the spotlight 60 miles away in Dana Point, Calif. The Browns are making sure the children have a normal life and loving environment like they enjoyed with devoted mom Nicole.

Nicole’s mom Judi told a friend: “After what O.J. has done to our daughter, the last thing we want is for him to have his kids.

“Sydney and Justin are better off with us. We love them with all our heart. With us, the kids will be in a caring environment like the one they had with their mother.”

The children have been living with the Browns since the day after the June 12 murders of Nicole and her pal Ron Goldman.

The tragedy has pulled the family even closer together. Nicole’s three sisters – Denise, Tanya and Dominique – have all moved into their parents home to help the kids. And Denise has become a surrogate mother to them, said a family source.

“For now, Denise’s full-time job is caring for the kids. The grandparents have enrolled Justin in karate class and have Sydney taking ballet lessons, just like their mother did when she was alive.

“Sydney’s and Justin’s days are filled with normal childhood activities, such as going to the beach and playing in the sand.”

The National Enquirer (September 13 1994)

Anything IS Possible? Your Day WILL Come!

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  Fast-living O.J. Simpson threw sex and drug parties at his $5-million mansion – with Los Angeles police officers among the guests, STAR can reveal.

“There were always lines of cocaine to snort,” says former hero cop Burt Kelsay, who parties with O.J. and other cops.

Kelsay’s exclusive interview with STAR is the first detailed account of Simpson’s close personal ties with cops from the West Los Angeles Division, the zone that includes O.J.’s Brentwood home.

At least eight times during Simpson’s stormy marriage to Nicole, police went to his Rockingham Avenue estate to answer 911 calls.

But only once was the football legend arrested by police and charged with spousal battery.

Kelsay, married to his third wife and now living in Palm Springs, says: “O.J. told me, ‘I want the police to be my friends. I’m pals with a lot of officers, some of them very high-ranking. If they’re cool, it doesn’t matter to me that they’re cops.’ Many officers in the local division were in awe of O.J. They wouldn’t have wanted to hear bad things about him.”

Most of the “parties” that Kelsay attended at Simpson’s home were guys’ nights out.

He says: “I want to make it clear that partying with O.J. meant nothing more than a few guys hanging out, doing coke and hitting the booze. Things never got crazy or out of hand.

“I saw Nicole at the house about four times. She’d stop by, snort a couple of lines, get some cash from O.J. and leave. But she’d always take some coke in a vial with her.

“One night I saw them out together at Pipps, a trendy L.A. nightclub. I walked in and spotted them seated at a table with four other couples.

O.J. waved to me and I went over and shook hands. Just as I was turning away, Nicole leaped up and screamed at O.J., ‘F— you!’

“Then she stormed out of the club. O.J. showed considerable restraint. He just shrugged his shoulders. I have no idea what the argument was about, but Nicole seemed very volatile.

I never saw O.J. lose his cool with Nicole or anyone else. 

He was a gentleman – whether he was sober, drunk or high on drugs. That’s why I don’t believe he committed the murders.

“I know from police experience that anything is possible. But knowing O.J., I find it impossible to believe that of him. I’m not privy to all the evidence, but so far, it points to O.J. being framed. Not by other cops, as some misguided individuals have suggested, but by sinister, twisted people.

“And I definitely believe there was more than one assailant. If I could tell O.J. one thing right now, it would be, “Your day will come. All this mess will soon be over,'”

Star Magazine (September 6 1994)

Murder on the Orenthal Express.

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There is no precedent in the annals of American crime for the pile of excrement in which football hero OJ Simpson has landed himself.

Despite our own rich heritage of mass murderers and celebrity villains, British criminal history also has nothing to compare. This is no Lester Piggott tax evasion scandal. A bona fide American sports legend may be on a one-way trip to the gas chamber.

It could only happen in America.

OJ Simpson is the winner of the 1968 Heisman trophy for the most valuable college football player, holder of the record for most yards rushed in a single season, member of the football Hall of Fame, spokesman for Hertz rental cars, respected TV sports commentator, and sometime actor with a regular role as Detective Nordberg in the Naked Gun films.

He is accused of the vicious laying of his ex-wife, Nicole, and her friend, waiter-cum-model Ron Goldman.

The murder weapon, still not recovered, is thought to be a “substantial knife.” So substantial, in fact, that Nicole’s beautiful blonde head was almost severed from her perfect body, her neck sliced through to expose her spinal cord.

The OJ Murders as The National Enquirer calls them, combine some favourite American national pastimes: football, murder and soul-searching.

The allegation of a double murder by a genuine American hero and celebrity has truly shocked and unnerved a public fed a daily diet of murder and mayhem.

This American tragedy involves “one of the world’s best-known and best-loved athletes,” according the US media reports.

Although a snap survey by the Los Angeles Times of sportswriters in town to cover the World Cup revealed that hardly any of them know who OJ Simpson is, it is a tragedy for the kids and adults who have grown up with Simpson.

He was never known as a prima donna, never charged for his autograph (a despicable custom among American sports figures) transcended the colour barrier and was one of the few football players in the sport’s history capable of turning a game around with his electrifying runs up the field.

Many Americans are having a tough time reconciling the man’s supposed “gentle giant” image with the brutality of his alleged actions. Real life has come and slapped America in the face.

This is not, repeat, NOT a movie.

Before the bizarre events transpired, a scriptwriter pitching the story that unfolded between 12 and 20 June would have been laughed out of every movie studio in the city. No one would touch this far-fetched fantasy with a beloved sports legend as the villain.

It has all the elements, and more, of a classic adventure mystery: murder, escape, wife-beating, the fall from grace of a respected figure, and extramarital affairs, with the buddy angle tossed in for good measure. The problem is, they’re not usually all in the same story.

The real tragedy reads like a comedy of errors. A previous violent act perpetrated by OJ against his wife was almost buried by a judge overly impressed with Simpson’s celebrity and the same media folk now camped outside his house in Brentwood, a posh area on L.A’s West side.

Fallout from the case is widespread. The LAPD, treading carefully after the Rodney King debacle, was accused of going too easy on Simpson because of his celebrity, than for being racist for their subsequent dogged pursuit of him.

The papers are full of agonizing analyses of the fall of yet another black hero and role model, following the ignominious demise of Magic Johnson, Mike Tyson and Michael Jackson. Time magazine has been accused of darkening their cover photo of OJ Simpson’s mugshot, and is denying charges of racism in trying to make him look “blacker”.

At a Ford car dealership in Gainesville, Georgia, some bright spark put a white Bronco on a ramp with a large sign reading “As seen on TV”.

Jane Garcia for Loaded Magazine (August 1994)

Can WE Get Worked Up About ABUSE?

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As the O.J. Simpson case continues to unfold, the national spotlight has begun to focus on the horrors of domestic violence and the abuse of women.

Simpson is being held without bail in the Los Angeles County Men’s Central Jail in the grisly double-homicide of his former spouse Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.

In 1989, Simpson pleaded “no contest” to abusing his then wife, and the recent release of 911 tapes gave a glimpse of one of his abusive tirades.

Audrey Chapman, family therapist/counselor and author, told JET from her Washington, DD, office,

“Unfortunately this has been a subject that has been neglected for too many years.

Battered women – and children – have been verbally, sexually and physically abused for years… Now you’ve got a whole country focused on domestic violence.

People are suddenly realizing this a major issue”.

Ms. Chapman pointed out, “It takes something like Nicole Brown Simpson losing her life to get people all worked up.

“Some say people wouldn’t have gotten so worked up if she had not been White. But I hope that this is not the case. It’s victimizing, degrading and very dangerous for the victim, regardless of race”.

On the highly-publicized 911 tape, Simpson could be heard in the background screaming obscenities, as his former wife pleaded for the police dispatcher to send help immediately.

It was just one in a series of calls she had made in an effort to quell domestic disturbances during their stormy seven-year marriage that dissolved in divorce in 1992.

Ms. Chapman told JET repeat calls to police for domestic disturbances should automatically result in authorities and social service agencies stepping in to get help for the abusive partner.

“If I report a child abuse case and it’s clear abuse is taking place, everybody gets involved. And it’s required by courts that abusers get therapy, whether they want to or not.

If they can do it with child abuse, they can certainly do it with domestic abuse.”

Husband and wife psychologists Drs. Julia and Nathan Hare who practice in San Francisco, hope something positive will come out of the entire O.J. Simpson “tragedy.”

She said, “It’s a tragedy that this happened, but it’s a sobering experience.”

“There is never any excuse for abuse or murder. Men can walk away. They don’t have to stay in a situation until they are completely out of control. This is bigger than O.J. Simpson,” she said.

Her husband added, “Men need to be taught an alternative way to deal with their women. There’s a problem of self-esteem and impulse control. You just don’t grab somebody because you feel like it.

While many states across the country are considering legislation that would allow law enforcement officials to press charges against a man who abuses a woman even if she refuses, Hare disagrees with such tactics.

“I think everything is a matter of degree. It depends on if she wants to keep the relationship going. You just can’t spend the tax payers’ money trying a person when the victim doesn’t want him to be tried.”

“Instead of going to jail – then the cure is worse than the disease – send both to a treatment center where a program could benefit them both. A lot of these people are poor and that’s not going to help when the man she loves – and probably still loves her – is in jail.”

Hare concluded that through counseling programs, men can learn to control their frustration and anger.

“Men resort to fisticuffs when they feel they have failed to deal with the woman on a person to person level.

Once he resorts to fisticuffs, he has already lost the fight – and the relationship.”

Jet Magazine (July 18 1994)

Outrageous? Unfair!

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Orenthal James Simpson rose in dramatic fashion from the vicious streets of San Francisco’s predominately Black Potrero Hill to become one of America’s most enduring and beloved sports figures, pulling in millions of dollars annually.

Now charged with the double murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson, 35, and her friend Ronald Goldman, 25, O.J., as the world calls him, has been quickly and shockingly reduced from adored legend to prisoner Number 4013970 in the Los Angeles County Jail under suicide watch.

O.J. Simpson gained international fame as the zig-zagging, Heisman Trophy-winning running back at the University of Southern California and the almost-impossible-to-bring-down halfback with the Buffalo Bills. He singlehandedly put the franchise on the football map.

And to top it all off, he had good looks and charisma. For Hollywood and the advertising industry, he was a dream come true.

Many remember him as the long-time spokesman for Hertz Rent-A-Car, the man who sprinted through airports to get his car as observers cheered.

Unlike many sports figures who fade into oblivion after their careers are over, Simpson was every bit as popular if not more so after he left football in 1979.

The fact that he was a family man also endeared the Juice to fans, especially the female variety. While at USC in 1967, he married his childhood friend, Marguerite Whitley, who had dated Cowlings.

Soon after Simpson turned pro, there emerged reports of marital trouble. During some of his early Buffalo years, Marguerite and their children stayed in L.A.

“Being on the road is a strain. I mean, you know how your lady is – she wants you there.

But after I make the transition from football to whatever else I’ll be doing, things will be different.”

In a 1978 JET cover story, Simpson said teenage girls had cornered him for autographs. He was named in a paternity suit. Stewardesses conveniently sat on his lap and he had to deal with rumors of affairs with such women as Liz Taylor and Sophia Loren.

“Well, I’m healthy and I’m a man. I wear clothes to accentuate. I like European clothes and I’m like any other guy or lady who likes to put his best foot forward.”

He said he couldn’t worry about the wild rumors.

“I can’t go out and protect from what people say about me. I try to have a good time…”

Simpson and Marguerite divorced in 1979, the year their third child, daughter Aaren, drowned in their L.A. pool.

An emotional Simpson told reporters in 1979 that football helped ease the pain of Aaren’s death.

Despite the divorce, it was that carmel-brown face and his talent for talk that enabled him to become his own best promoter and led him to Hollywood. His boyish face and charms paved the way for a career in films.

Simpson, for some reason, received some immediate and heavy criticism when he made a television movie about an interracial romance with Elizabeth Montgomery titled A Killing Affair.

He also was criticized when pictures of him with another White woman, Nicole Brown, surfaced in 1979. He met her in 1977 when she was an 18-year-old waitress in L.A., and had her move in with him two years later.

The two by many accounts, lived a lavish life-traveling around the world in style, living in beautiful homes on Los Angeles’ posh West Side and an elegant New York apartment.

Nicole, a blonde model, tooled around L.A. in a beautiful Ferrari.

After a stormy, seven-year marriage, Simpson and Nicole divorced.

And now, it is over. Hertz dropped Simpson as its spokesman after he was charged with murder and the media, the organ that showered him with compliments for the last 25 years, has attacked him non-stop since his name emerged as a suspect.

The Los Angeles District Attorney, Gil Garcetti, has said the case is about domestic violence and the subject has appeared on numerous talk shows and news programs.

Fans and many media observers have expressed outrage at the number of unsubstantiated rumors newspapers and television programs have run with. There had been much reporting of a ski mask being found at Simpson’s estate. During a hearing, the district attorney’s office was forced to admit that it does not exist.

Fans interviewed by JET said they were gathering at his home not just because they feel he is innocent, they also said they felt the Juice was the victim of racism and an unfair media witch hunt.

There was also widespread shock and numbness that such a truly beloved individual could ever end up behind bars for any reason.

Jet Magazine (July 11 1994)

Can’t Live. Can’t Live Without.

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Football superstar O.J. Simpson’s ex-wife told friends she feared for her life in the weeks before her brutal murder.

A STAR investigation has uncovered a shocking pattern of violence, obsession and jealousy in the volatile relationship between Simpson – who went on to fame in movies, TV and commercials – and his beautiful blonde wife, Nicole Simpson.

Nicole Simpson, 35, and her male companion Ronald Goldman, 25, were found savagely slain outside her luxury condominium in posh West Los Angeles last week.

But as the story of his ex-wife’s death unfolded in Hollywood last week, it sounded more incredible than the wildest movie script.

Friends say Nicole lived in fear of the one-time Buffalo Bill’s superstar. O.J. had been convicted of beating her up five years ago after allegedly screaming: “I’m going to kill you!”. But the couple still continued their on-again, off-again relationship.

“He would drive past her home at all hours of the day and night hoping to catch a glimpse of her. he wanted a reconciliation,” says a source.

“In April, a friend saw her shopping in the market and she was wearing sunglasses. She told the friend it was because O.J. had given her a black eye.

“A week before she died, she told friends she thought she was being followed. O.J. and Nicole separated many times and she would usually begin dating young, gorgeous guys with no brains. It was a very sick relationship they had.”

Nicole’s sister-in-law Maria Brown tells STAR:

“She and O.J. had a lot of problems. He was real jealous, wouldn’t even let her talk to another man.

“She never really talked to me about the beatings, but her brother Rolf, knew and it made him mad.”

Another source says O.J. recently confronted Nicole about taking drugs – specifically crack – and threatened he would go the authorities.

But other friends paint Nicole as a caring, loving mother, who put her two youngsters ahead of everything, and encouraged O.J. to visit them.

“She was a terrific mother,” says pal Grant Cramer. “And I think she always loved O.J., but they just couldn’t live together. For their sake she moved out of the house, not because she wanted to split the family up”.

“She wanted them to see as much of their father as they could. She brought them over every weekend.”

The shocking murder took place on Sunday night, June 12 – hours after Nicole and O.J. attended a school dance recital for one of their children.

Neighbor Amy Hartunian, whose daughter is a pupil at the same dance school, saw the proud parents together just hours before Nicole’s murder. “I can’t believe this happened,” she says. “She was on top of the world. She looked great.”

Star Magazine (June 28 1994)

One Monster. One Howling Tragedy.

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It was terrible to watch and impossible not to.

That was the nature of the entire week, as America stopped its traffic to watch each clue scrape away another layer of the mystery. Where the facts were missing, the suspicions sufficed to keep the audience fed.

When there was nothing new to report, the reporters interviewed each other, covering the coverage and defending themselves against accusations that they had already put Simpson on trial for murdering his ex-wife Nicole and her friend Ron Goldman before he had even been charged.

Hearsay was not just admissible; it was broadcast live.

Of course he did it – he had beaten her before, he was high on coke, he had gone into a jealous rage; of course he didn’t do it – he loved her too much, he was incapable of such savagery, he had an airtight alibi.

Maybe he could have done it, but surely he would have been smarter, hired someone else and not left a trail behind.

All week long the clues and rumors leaked out, often from cops who were angry that the prosecutors were treating their celebrity suspect so delicately.

First there were the bloody gloves – one at the murder scene, one at O.J.’s mansion. Then there were the bloody clothes in his washing machine, and the ski mask, and the stains on his driveway and in his car.

The weapon was an antique samurai sword, then a sharp-edged military entrenching tool, the newspapers revealed, before the district attorney announced that no weapon had been found.

He killed himself, the Wall Street trading floors buzzed on Wednesday morning, before he appeared that afternoon at his ex-wife’s wake.

Pundits trotted out Shakespeare for references; talk-radio hosts searched for Larger Meanings, about the destruction of black male role models, the special treatment of celebrities by police, the danger women face from the men who profess to love them.

But by the end of the week, with the last astounding twists to the case, it seemed that there were no larger meanings – just a howling, monstrous tragedy.

Americans honor the principle of the presumption of innocence, especially when they want it to be true. And through the days of promiscuous speculation, in the sports bars and on the radio shows and in the endless conversations over dinner, O.J. Simpson’s many admirers refused to suspend their disbelief.

The most publicly shocking crime in years was received like a private death in the family.

Before it was all over, millions of fans were already passing through the stages of their grief – mourning not only two victims they had never known, but the hero they thought they had.

Time Magazine (June 27 1994)