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Shocking revelations from 'Life & Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson' Lifetime documentary
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Date:2025-04-16 21:36:17
Nearly 30 years after her death — a crime for which no one has been convicted — “The Life & Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson” documentary aims to shed light on what the mother of two and ex-wife of O.J. Simpson, was really like.
The Lifetime docuseries airing June 1 and 2 features home movies of the German-born Brown Simpson being held by her parents as a child and dipping daughter Sydney’s toes into the water. Brown Simpson and Simpson welcomed two children during their seven-year union: Sydney, now 38, and Justin, 35.
Brown Simpson’s sisters — Denise, Dominique and Tanya Brown — reflect on their adventurous siblings in the docuseries, which concludes Sunday (8 EDT/PDT), along with friends including reality star/businesswoman Kris Jenner.
“One of my best memories of Nicole was when she would climb up on the roof at Christmastime and do all of her own Christmas lights,” Jenner says. “And that would just amaze me, and of course I would run home and try to do my own Christmas lights.”
At just 35, Brown Simpson was fatally stabbed outside of her Los Angeles home on June 12, 1994, along with her visiting friend Ron Goldman. Alhough O.J. Simpson, who died in April, was tried and acquitted of the killings, the docuseries makes clear his hands were far from clean.
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Here are the startling revelations from Night 1 of “The Life & Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson.”
Nicole Brown Simpson's sisters remember'adventurous' spirit before meeting O.J. Simpson
A ‘forceful’ O.J. Simpson ripped Nicole Brown Simpson’s pants on their first date
At 18, Nicole was living in Los Angeles with her friend David LeBon. She worked at The Daisy restaurant on Beverly Hills’ famed Rodeo Drive and met Simpson there in the summer of 1977.
“He kept coming in and seeing her,” LeBon says in the docuseries, “and he had this obsession about her.”
The two went on a date. When Brown Simpson returned, the zipper of her jeans was ripped, says D’Anne Purcilly, LeBon’s ex-wife and a friend of the Brown family.
LeBon remembers his roommate, Brown Simpson, telling him that OJ “got a little forceful.” Brown Simpson told an angered LeBon to calm down, and that she really liked Simpson.
Despite repeated beatings, Nicole Brown Simpson believed a baptism would make O.J. Simpson ‘a new person’
Brown Simpson documented Simpson’s abuse in her journal. In a 1977 entry, she accused him of cheating after she found an earring. “He threw a fit, chased me, threw me into walls, bruised me…” She also wrote of bruises while the family vacationed in Hawaii during Christmas in 1988: “O.J. threw me against walls in our hotel & on the floor. Put bruises on my arms & back.”
Denise says she witnessed the abuse firsthand at the couple's Brentwood home after Denise said Simpson took her sister for granted. He screamed, Denise says, and threw pictures of the Browns. “He grabs her (Nicole) by the throat, and he puts her up against the kitchen door, and he throws her out the door, and she ends up on her butt and ends up with bloodied elbows,” she says, claiming O.J. also tossed her out of the home. But the incident was never discussed again, Denise says: “Life went on as usual.”
Denise was concerned when Brown Simpson said she and Simpson planned to marry seven years after they began dating. Brown Simpson believed a baptism would change her husband-to-be. “Everything is going to change,” Brown Simpson told Denise. “He’s going to become a new person.”
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O.J. Simpson would threaten Nicole Brown Simpson: ‘I am going to chop you up in little pieces’
Courtroom footage included Detective John Edwards' testimony that he responded to a call at the Simpsons’ on New Year’s Day 1989. “She collapsed and started yelling, ‘He’s going to kill me. He’s going to kill me,’” Edwards said.
Brown Simpson had a cut lip and swollen forehead, he added. “She had a hand imprint on the left side of her throat.”
Spencer Marks, a retired LAPD officer, responded to an incident at Brown Simpson’s home in 1993, after their separation. “She said, ‘I know for a fact he’s going to murder me one day,’” he recalled.
And Purcilly says Brown Simpson told her O.J. threatened her during arguments. “I am going to chop you up in little pieces and bury you up on Mullholland,” Purcilly says he told Brown Simpson, “and no one will know where you are, not even your children.”
Witness sees O.J. Simpson driving near the scene of killings: ‘He obviously was in a rush’
The second hour revisits the events of the night Brown Simpson and Goldman were murdered.
Limo driver Allan Park says he arrived at Simpson’s residence around 10:25 p.m. to take him to the airport for his Chicago flight. Simpson’s residence at 360 N. Rockingham Avenue was about two miles from Brown Simpson’s townhouse at 875 S. Bundy Drive.
Park says he buzzed the intercom outside of Simpson’s house after arriving, but no one answered.
Jill Shively, a grand jury witness, recalled seeing Simpson driving when she went to pick up takeout at 10:45. At the intersection of San Vicente Boulevard and Bundy Drive, less than half a mile from the scene of the murders, Shively says, “I almost collide with this Bronco running the red light, and it had no lights on.”
“It swerved to miss me, but then it had to swerve to miss hitting a grey Nissan going the other way,” Shively continues. “Then the Bronco has its wheel up on the median. He was yelling at the other driver to move out of the way.”
Shively recognized the driver’s face as Simpson's. “He looked angry,” she says. “He obviously was in a rush.”
Park says around 10:55 p.m. he saw “a dark figure coming from the garage side of the house, moving very quickly and heading towards the front of the door.” So he rang the intercom again, and this time Simpson finally answered. He told the driver he just got out of the shower and would be down soon.
Park says when he saw Simpson he couldn’t determine if he’d recently showered. “I did remember seeing beads of sweat on him.”
OJ Simpson's trial exposedAmerica's racial divide. Three decades later, what's changed?
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