Kim Kardashian remains silent on O.J. Simpson’s passing
On Thursday, Kim Kardashian’s Instagram profile made no mention of O.J. Simpson. In the morning, she posted a video promoting Skims, the clothing company she co-founded. Later, after the Simpson family announced O.J.’s passing at 76 due to cancer, Kardashian stayed silent on social media.
For decades, her family had distanced themselves from the man who played a significant role in bolstering the Kardashian name.
Kim’s father, Robert Kardashian, met Simpson through their connections at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles. Robert graduated with a business degree in 1966, and Simpson was a star runner at the university in 1967 and 1968.
They became close in the 1970s, with Simpson excelling in the NFL and Kardashian becoming a successful lawyer and entrepreneur in Los Angeles. When Robert Kardashian married Kris Houghton (now Kris Jenner) in 1978, Simpson was his best man. The couple had four children: Kim, Kourtney, Khloe, and Robert Jr. The couple divorced in 1991, and that same year, Jenner married Caitlyn Jenner, a former Olympian.
Simpson met Nicole Brown in 1977, while still married to his first wife. During a separation from his wife, he lived with Kardashian, as Simpson wrote in his 2007 book, “If I Did It.” Simpson and Brown married in 1985 and divorced in 1992. Kardashian remained friends with Simpson throughout those years, and his wife became close to Brown Simpson.
In 1994, Kardashian joined the so-called dream team that defended Simpson when he was accused of murdering his ex-wife and her friend, Ronald Goldman.
Kardashian’s continued support of Simpson was a source of tension in the family, as Kim Kardashian revealed in a 2015 interview with Rolling Stone. She sided with her father, she said, while her mother believed Simpson was guilty.
Robert Kardashian was with Simpson when the police questioned him at his Los Angeles home the day after Brown Simpson was found dead outside her home after being stabbed multiple times.
As the police pursued the case against Simpson for the double murder, lawyer Robert Shapiro was hired to lead his defense. The team also included lawyer Johnnie Cochran.
Shapiro brought Kardashian on as a lawyer, although he had no real legal role, according to Jeffrey Toobin, whose coverage of the trial for The New Yorker led to a book: “The Run of His Life, The People v. O.J. Simpson.”
“Kardashian had no legal function at all,” Toobin said in a phone interview on Thursday. “He was just there to pamper O.J.”
“Bob Shapiro and Johnnie Cochran had real jobs to do. They didn’t have time to deal with O.J.’s clothing and his phone privileges in jail. All of that fell to Kardashian,” he added.
Even before charges were filed, Kardashian seemed to embrace the role with gusto. With camera crews outside Simpson’s house, a hideout was needed. He provided it at his home on Bundy Drive in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles.
After charges were filed, Simpson fled from Kardashian’s house in a Ford Bronco, with his friend and former teammate Al Cowlings. Simpson reportedly had a gun to his head and threatened suicide as he led police on a surreal slow-speed car chase, televised nationwide.
As that unfolded, Kardashian held a press conference where he read a letter Simpson had left. It sounded like a suicide note. According to Toobin, Kardashian “made it sound much more grammatically correct than it actually was.” Throughout the lengthy trial, Kardashian was daily at the defense table, despite his limited role.
His ex-wife gave birth to a daughter, Kendall Jenner, on November 3, 1995, a month after Simpson’s acquittal. In tribute to her friend, Kris Jenner gave the girl the middle name Nicole.
Robert Kardashian was a source for the 1996 book “American Tragedy: The Uncensored Story of the Simpson Defense” by Lawrence Schiller and James Willwerth. Due to his cooperation with the authors, it was reported that Kardashian and Simpson stopped speaking.
In a 1996 interview with ABC News’ Barbara Walters, Kardashian stated that he had come to question Simpson’s innocence. “I have doubts,” he said. “The blood evidence is the biggest thorn in my side; that’s the thing that really nags at me. So it’s hard for me to ignore the blood evidence.”
“I’ve never admired that,” Toobin said. “Either you’re his lawyer or you’re not. It’s not your job to publicly speculate on whether he’s guilty or not. But I think Bob understood that in his world of West Los Angeles, everyone thought O.J. was guilty and he didn’t want to stand out from that consensus.”
Kardashian passed away at 59 in 2003 due to cancer. His ties to Simpson were a central theme in his obituary published by The Associated Press.
Caitlyn Jenner, who regularly appeared on “Keeping Up With the Kardashians,” the E! series that made the Kardashians stars, was the only member of the clan to speak out on social media about Simpson.
“Goodbye, #OJSimpson,” she wrote on the X platform, formerly known as Twitter.
Jacob Bernstein is a reporter for the Styles section. In addition to writing profiles of fashion designers, artists, and celebrities, he has focused much of his attention on LGBT community issues, philanthropy, and the world of furniture design. More from Jacob Bernstein.
