You're Wrong About - The O.J. Simpson Trial: Nicole Brown Simpson Part 2

Episode Date: October 17, 2019

“You can’t expect people to know the exact kind of help they need.” We continue our deep dive into the O.J. Simpson case with the history of Nicole Brown Simpson's marriage to O.J., their 1992 divorce and the last weeks of Nicole's life. Digressions include Julia Roberts, Malibu real estate and Madonna’s "Erotica." Mike is fighting a cold and apologizes for his raspiness. This episode contains even greater detail on the violence and domestic abuse Nicole suffered.Plus, a correction! Sarah forgot to mention that O.J. Simpson received two years of probation for the 1989 incident.Continue reading →Support us:Subscribe on PatreonDonate on PaypalBuy cute merchWhere to find us: Sarah's other show, Why Are Dads Mike's other show, Maintenance PhaseSupport the show

By the way, I guess to open to a random page in Faye Resnick's book and my eyes were immediately drawn to the sentence, not long after our night at Don Henley's. I really appreciate that Don Henley appears periodically as like a ghost of the feast in our shows. Welcome to You're Wrong About, the podcast where every episode is a content warning for the sequel episode because it sounds like this story is getting darker and darker as we tell it. Yeah, it is. It is. And so what's coming is more of what we've heard and worse. Yes, we're just setting expectations traumatized. Well, yeah, well, we're all going to go through this together. So come with us if you can.

I am Michael Hobbs. I'm a reporter for The Huffington Post. I'm Sarah Marshall. I'm working on a book about the Satanic Panic. If you'd like to support the show, we are on Patreon at patreon.com slash You're Wrong About. And today we're doing Nicole Brown Simpson part two. Part two. So, Mike, what have we learned so far? Okay, so last episode. Oh, you're ready.

Oh, yeah. You're like, I prepared. I've been looking for this all week. I feel like I'm Holland Taylor and Legally Blonde in your LWoods after doing your like treadmill study session in my favorite scene. And so last episode, we met Nicole Brown Simpson, who was 18 and five months when she met O.J. Simpson. 18 and five weeks.

18 and five weeks, sorry. 00:01:38,640 --> 00:01:46,160 And they got together pretty quickly and they spent, I believe it was eight years in a courtship period where his abuse of her was getting more and more severe and his apologies to her were getting more and more extravagant. And his final offering to her when we left this story was he offers to get married after a period of abuse. So to apologize, he offers to get married to Nicole and that's where we left it.

Because he's already bought her a Porsche. Yes. I want to tell you about something that to me personally is the most haunting detail about Nicole and O.J.'s wedding, which is a very random and arbitrary thing. But there's footage of their wedding in O.J. Made in America and there's just this tiny little scene of them, of O.J. and Nicole and their guests dancing to Jump for My Love by the Pointer Sisters. Okay.

It's like this, it's this very joyful song about like letting love into your heart. And we talked in the last episode about Nicole believing that once O.J. married her, like he wouldn't cheat on her anymore, which is what she's really focused on and what she talks to her friends about. She doesn't talk to people hardly at all about the physical abuse. But she talks to them about being frustrated that he's constantly unfaithful to her. And as they're getting ready to get married, he's like, yes, like once we are married, I won't cheat on you. Right.

The promise that has been made like 10 billion times in human history and kept like four times. But it's just like this, it's this moment of like them dancing to this joyful, stupid song about idealistic, joyful loving. And it just feels like if you marry someone and dance to that song at your wedding, like they shouldn't be able to kill you later on. Like they shouldn't be allowed to happen. Jesus. But well, obviously you're not allowed to kill people anyway, like legally, but it just feels like if that, do you know what I mean? It's like that that's what is so discordant about

abusive relationships is that there was this like this beautiful moment. And then everyone was a part of it. And people talk about how it was this amazing wedding. People stayed and danced for 12 hours. There's footage of it in O.J. Made in America. That's like this beautiful moment where O.J. has a microphone and Nicole is a little ways away from him. And she's wearing this beautiful, like very bridal, very like princessy dress that she like wouldn't let anyone look at before the wedding because she was a superstitious, old fashioned bride. And so there's footage of him at the wedding kind of giving this speech to her saying like, Nicole, you brought love into my home. The quality of it is really grainy,

but like she can tell that she's just like beaming, like just like beaming her face off. So she believes it. Yeah. And I watched it and he seems so sincere according to, you know, whatever my metric of sincerity is, but I was watching and I was like, well, what does that mean? I mean, is this O.J. the pitch man or is this him expressing his emotions in the moment or does he know the difference or, you know, does he feel this degree of love and gratitude for her at times and then just at other times? His abusiveness takes over or is none of this genuine or some of it? Or like, and that's, I think the frustrating thing about this and why people are maybe

remain in the dark about how abusive a relationship can be if on the other side it has these beautiful and highly convincing whatever is going on displays of affection. Right. I have had various friends in abusive relationships and it does seem like sort of what keeps you there is that the affection and the apologies and the emotions are actually very genuine or at least they feel very genuine. I mean, what seems to characterize domestic abusers is that they are authentic, right? That their anger is authentic, but also their apologies are authentic and their remorse is authentic and their sort of overstated declarations of love are also authentic because if they weren't authentic, you wouldn't stay.

I mean, the thing is that it's very childlike behavior. Yeah, exactly. It's just that you can't have a child who's six, two and made out of pure muscle and who treats you like a stuffed animal. It's all toddler behavior, I think, a lot of the time. It's like this rage that doesn't know its own strengths and then just like unconditional proclamations of affection and out of control remorse and like needing to be taken care of by the person you've just hurt. I mean, there's obviously a manipulative element to abuse too, but there's also this genuine, these emotions flinging back and forth and there are genuine emotions on both sides. Yeah, and I feel like great liars are great liars

because they believe what they're saying in the moment. Yeah. And people describe O.J. Simpson as a consummate liar. Oh, really? I can believe that at his wedding, leading up to his wedding based on all the proclamations he made, not just to Nicole, but to their friends, to people in their social circle had this genuine belief, not just leading up to the wedding, but then after they got married, after they separated, as they were trying to reconcile, a lot of people talk in Sheila Weller's book and elsewhere about like, well, we just really wanted them to be together. And when they talked about breaking up, we encouraged them to reconcile. I mean, not everyone did that,

but a lot of people after the fact were like, I feel so bad now because I encouraged Nicole to work it out with O.J. because we wanted this family that we love to be a part of to get back together because they had this abundant, beautiful lifestyle, these great parties, they did Easter egg hunts and like took big lavish vacations and just had lots of family gatherings and sort of gathered in their friends and their community and people wanted that to, they didn't want it to go away. Right, right. You know? So I can believe that in the wedding, you know, we can believe in a scenario where during this wedding, he believed every word of what he was saying, he believed he was going to be faithful, he believed he wasn't going to hit

her anymore and where everything that happened still happened because I think I've noticed listening to previous episodes and I'm always sighing in the middle of sentences. I don't know what that's about. I need to work on breathing, but to me, it's important to acknowledge that often the worst harms are carried out by people who are incapable of facing their ability to cause harm. Yeah. And so is there sort of an immediate counter narrative foreboding after the wedding? I mean, does he kind of revert back to his old ways quickly? It absolutely returns to the way it was before and it's possible that it immediately gets worse because at the time that they get married, Nicole is already pregnant. We also know that she's had

at least two abortions before this pregnancy. Her abortions are going to be tabloid fodder pretty soon. Yeah. Does he know about the abortions? I haven't read anything that says that specifically, but there's a later incident where she's early in her pregnancy with their son. So they've already had their daughter, Sydney, who she's a little bit pregnant with at the wedding. And she comes home with Sydney from Disney on ice and OJ starts attacking her and yelling at her and telling her to have an abortion. Jesus. Okay. So you can extrapolate from that. But during her pregnancy with Sydney, OJ gets really fixated on basically the fact that she gains weight. No. What do you think about that? I mean, it's kind of weird to be like, man, what a dick because we've already

established that he's like violent, but this is an extra layer of dickery. But I feel like the mundane details are like, we can see other stuff doing that somehow. That's just wild, though, because that's what your body is supposed to do when you have a living creature inside of it. Like, of course, you're gaining weight. And also, if you love somebody, it's fine if they gain weight. Right. Yes, to all that. But he apparently believes that she should only gain the amount that the baby weighs. Oh, really? Oh. So she should gain like nine pounds and that's it? Yeah. She says seven. She says he said seven pounds. She doesn't even get the amount of weight that a healthy baby weighs. She can gain a small baby. I was month early and I weighed seven pounds.

She can gain an early baby. So she spends the pregnancy getting criticized by him. Yeah. And it's so petty. And he just is constantly calling her fat, calling her a fat pig. Jesus fucking Christ. Say, look at your arms, look at your legs. I mean, can I just say one thing? One thing I've learned from reading many interviews and sort of researching a lot of weight stuff over the last couple of years is that there is no weight at which a woman cannot be made to feel fat. No. I mean, you hear about women that are like literally models saying like, oh, I have some like extra skin on the back of my arms or something like that. Like there's no level of beauty at which somebody doesn't have insecurities.

And those insecurities cannot be weaponized, right? That like, imagine saying to Nicole Brown Simpson at age 20, whatever she was, like you're fat or like you're not attractive. Like it is unfathomable on any objective scale. And yet just because of the way that women are socialized, no matter their beauty, it's like you can always make somebody feel like shit about their looks no matter what. And also it's like the objective reality doesn't matter. Like he's the only person she really wants to make happy. Yeah. And she can't. So like it doesn't matter what she looks like. It matters how he treats her. Yeah. So let me read you some of a letter that was introduced as evidence in OJ Simpson's civil trial. So this came out publicly many years

later. It's undated and OJ testified that he never got the letter. So presumably she wrote it and then decided against sending it. Okay. And so she writes, okay, I think I have to put this all in a letter. A lot of years ago, I used to do much better in a letter. I'm going to try it again now. I'd like you to keep this letter if we split so that you'll always know why we split. I'd also like you to keep it if we stay together as a reminder. Right now I am so angry. If I didn't know that the courts would take Sydney and Justin away from me, if I did this, I would expletive every guy including some that you know, just to let you know how it feels. Wow. I wish someone could explain all this to me. I see our marriage as a huge mistake and you don't. I knew

what went on in our relationship before we got married. I knew after six years that all the things I thought were going on were all the things I gave into all the I'm sorry for thinking that I'm sorry for not believing you. I made up with you all the time and even took the blame many times for your cheating. I know this took place because we fought about it a lot and even discussed it before we got married with my family and a minister. I wanted to be a wonderful wife. I believed you that it would finally be you and me against the world that people would be envious or in awe of us because we stuck through it and finally became a real couple. You wanted a baby so you said and I wanted a baby. Then with each pound you were terrible. You gave me dirty looks of disgust,

said mean things to me at times about my appearance and walked out on me and lied to me. In between Sydney and Justin you say my clothes bothered you that my shoes were on the floor that I bugged you. Wow that's so terrible. There was also that time before Justin and a few months after Sydney I felt really good about how I got back into shape. You beat the holy hell out of me and we lied at the x-ray lab and said I fell off a bike. Aw fuck. Great for my self-esteem. Then came the pregnancy with Justin and oh how wonderful you treated me again. I remember swearing to God and myself that under no circumstances would I let you be in that delivery room. I hated you so much and since Justin's birth and the mad New Year's Eve blow up I don't see how our stories

compare. I was so bad because I wore sweats and left shoes around and didn't keep a perfect house or comb my hair the way you liked it or had dinner ready at the precise moment you walk through the door or that I guess playing God on your nerves sometimes. I just don't see how that compares to infidelity, wife beating, verbal abuse. I just don't think everybody goes through this. Gosh she's a good writer. Yeah. That's like a weird comment to make but it's like this is clearly like a smart woman who's very good at expressing how she feels. Yeah but then couldn't send the letter and then she says if I wanted to hurt you or had it in me to be anything like the person you are I would have done so after the illegible incident but I didn't even do it then. I called the cops

to save my life whether you believe it or not but I didn't pursue anything after that. I didn't prosecute. I didn't call the press and I didn't make a big charade out of it. I waited for it to die down and asked for it too but I've never loved you since or been the same. Wow. I agree after we married things changed. We couldn't have households of people like I used to have over in barbecue for because I had other responsibilities. I didn't want to go to a lot of events and I backed down at the last minute on functions and trips. I admit I'm sorry. I just believe that a relationship is based on trust and the last time I trusted you was at our wedding ceremony. It's just so hard for me to trust you again even though you say you're a different guy. That O.J. Simpson guy

brought me a lot of pain, heartache. I tried so hard with him. I wanted so to be a good wife but he never gave me a chance. Wow. Is your heart just breaking? It's like the saddest thing is that she's still apologizing for stuff that is like normal stuff like I backed out of functions like yeah people do that. Yes and her sins are like she wore sweats. Yeah. It's like this is that's the best part about being in your 30s. It's like not just the wearing sweats but like not having to feel bad about it. Yeah. That's the point of being in a relationship is having like a sweats teammate. Yes that is the point of being in a relationship in your 30s wearing your sweats and gaining over seven pounds. Yes exactly. So tell me if this is totally wrong but like

it sounds to me like the trajectory after she has Sydney is her outwardly sort of trying to keep him happy and trying to keep the abuse at bay but as the relationship goes on her feelings on the inside start to turn more and more against him because it's interesting that by the time she has the second kid she says I didn't want you in the delivery room. Yeah and he didn't get in there either. Yeah that implies she's realizing that she needs to leave this relationship even while she's sort of placating him. Yeah. Is that true? Yeah and I think probably what also happens is that there are periods where he will after an outburst be apologetic or be really loving and she can kind of focus on that while it's happening and then only when things get bad again return to like

oh god like I might have to do something about this. Right. But I mean it's funny I was thinking about it and one of the things that I said in our episode part one that now will drive me nuts for the rest of my life is that she was that OJ Simpson was in control of her life for slightly more than half of it and that's not true it's slightly less than half of it is what I should have said because she died right after she turned 35 and she met OJ right after she turned 18. Okay. So it was 17 years and I just think it's terrible that I make errors like that and call myself your podcast your rebunking podcast person I mean. I know the standards are terrible in this field yes. But let's talk about the abuse that escalates from the wedding in 1985 to the

eligible incident that she's almost certainly talking about in this letter which happened in 1989. Was this the New Year's Eve incident? Yes. Okay. So first of all there's an incident in fall or winter of 1985. Okay so just after their wedding. Well they got married in February so this is probably right after she had Sydney. Okay. According to Sheila Weller's raging heart Nicole drives home from lunch and OJ comes out and starts attacking the windshield of her car and hitting her car with a baseball bat. What the fuck? Yeah. Why is he doing this? I don't know. Okay. I don't know if the answer is out there because the thing is too it's like it's never for any real reason you know the fake reason is always like you embarrass me in front

of Frank Sinatra you kissed a guy's cheek you wore sweats you know it's like she never does anything wrong to inspire these things it's just I think it's just that he's in that place and he needs an excuse. Wow. And so Nicole is terrified she runs inside and calls the police and the patrolman who shows up is named Mark Furman. Holy shit really? Yeah. What? Wow. Can you tell us real quick who is Mark Furman? Why is he going to be important later? He will be the detective who investigates the murder of Nicole Brown Simpson in I don't know 10 more years or whenever it is. Yeah in nine years. In nine years. And so he you know a decade after this will be useful to the defense team because they also are able to establish that he is has a history of racist

speech. Right. What the defense makes of this visit that Furman pays to Nicole in 1985 is that A he's incensed by the fact that he sees a white woman in a relationship with a black man. So the defense will elect that he saw this and that he remembered it and filed it away and then when he was called to Nicole's house and realized that she had been murdered and it was the same woman that he had seen nine years before that he decided to frame O.J. Simpson for that reason. The problem with that theory aside from various issues about how do you transport a bloody glove to a second location etc and so forth is that Mark Furman was like fairly nonchalant about this call and seems to have remembered it mainly because it involved a famous person and

he'd never been called to a famous person's homicidal. Wow. On a domestic dispute before. So he showed up and he's like hey you're O.J. Simpson. So jumping ahead to 1995, Marcia Clark is questioning Mark Furman. Now back in 1985 we were talking about you responded to the defendant's home on at 360 Rockingham pursuant to a call where you saw a woman crying leaning up against a Mercedes Benz. Do you recall that testimony sir? Yes ma'am. Marcia says did you overfill out a report that described that event? No I didn't. Now you saw that the woman involved with Mr. Simpson was a white woman didn't you? Yes. Did you take any steps to further investigate that incident? No. Did you make any effort to encourage that the defendant

be prosecuted for it? No. Did you notify any news media about that incident? No I didn't. Could you have called your supervisor to come and further investigate the incident? Yes. Did you? No I didn't. Could you have interviewed Mr. Simpson concerning these incidents? That incident? Yes. Did you? No. Could you have interviewed Nicole Brown concerning the incident? Yes. Did you? No. So. God I'm just hearing like the ride of the valkyries in my head just getting like more and more intense as like the tension in this exchange ramps up. Who knows how many people in the courtroom even felt that tension? Yeah. And we're like wow he really should have done something. Yeah. And what Nicole says later is that the police dismiss it

as a loves bat. He's only taking a baseball bat to his own car. Which he's allowed to do. I guess technically yeah. And it's his own wife. Not technically but. Well Mark Ferman the statements he made in the past are very racist. Like that's true. He's capable of genocidally racist fantasies but even within that he wasn't moved to take this opportunity to arrest a black person. He knew who O.J. Simpson was. He later said that he remembered the incident because it was a celebrity incident. Right. It seems like in this case celebrity was perhaps more powerful than racism even for Mark Ferman. Right. Or the lack of seriousness attached to domestic violence played a role in that. Yeah. You know maybe also if you're Mark Ferman or if you're any racist LAPD cop

it's like property crime. That's a serious offense. Right. Beating your wife. Right. I don't know. Well I think I mean I think we often have this way of talking about prejudice as if people only have one prejudice at a time. You know one thing I've learned from reading up about white color crime for the last almost year is that people have these prejudices against sort of corporate criminal like terrible and wrong type people. But then we also have positive prejudices for sort of upstanding members of society. And so a lot of white criminal trials are sort of like one side saying these are corporate wrongdoers and then the other side saying these guys coach a little league and they're fine. And so it's basically two biases

fighting against each other. And it seems like that's kind of happening here too that he has a bias against or maybe he has a bias against black people. But he also has a bias for rich people and celebrities. Yeah. Or for sports stars. Yeah. Like none of it is like defensible necessarily but it's all. No. It's like these two things that are like bringing a little red ball into like approval disapproval approval disapproval and it's all these like dumb instinctual forces pushing at it in different directions. Yeah. It's such a weird twist of fate that Mark Ferman who yes later on will become so useful to the defense team that seeks to exonerate her husband will be called to the scene of a domestic abuse incident and not take it very seriously.

Amazing. He ends up being useful to O.J. twice. Right. Which should be a lesson to all racists. Sometimes your racism will cause something to happen that you won't like. That's that's what I have for you today. Racism is an only good. It can also be bad if you're a racist. Racism can have some unexpected consequences for you as a racist. Ever think about that. It sounds like very few people. Well you tell me how many people were aware of the abuse or like was anybody aware of the extent of the abuse. I don't know. I can't say this with any certainty but it seems to me based on everything I've learned so far that very few people knew there was physical abuse in the relationship or if they did

they thought that what they'd seen was an isolated incident or they laughed it off as like not like violent behavior like or people would see him rage at her but not actually physically hurt her or you know people didn't connect anger or emotional abuse to the possibility of physical violence. God. So I think it's like willful ignorance and a lack of a lack of education about how these patterns appear. What's weird about it is that I imagine many of these people would sort of in the abstract be against like wife beaters out of the scum of society but then it's like well my buddy OJ's had a wife beater like he just gets mad sometimes and like you know he might have pushed her out of the car but like it seemed like maybe she fell too like

they find these ways of justifying why it's not wife beating. And she was pushing his buttons once again so many people saying Nicole knew how to push OJ's buttons. Right. Which meant things like she gave him a hard time about cheating on her. Right. And like slapped him on on occasions that other people observed. So they could they were also you know because she wasn't completely passive all the time people could see it as kind of a mutual dynamic if they wanted to. Yeah. It's just weird how out in the open all this stuff was to some extent or at least like the telltale signs of it were out in the open. Yeah. It's actually a lot like Kitty Genevies right. Yeah. Because all the people in this friend group this extended family group it's not like they saw him

beating her and all ignored it happily. It's that a lot of people saw something but it was enough that their confirmation bias could overwrite it. Yeah. Or some people you know they really did see that it was a bad marriage. Right. And that she was unhappy and encouraged her to go but just didn't understand all the ways that the abuse presented. And there's also a weird complicity in that it also encourages you when you see a little part of something not to talk about it with other people. Yeah. Right. That if three or four of their friends had sat down and said like you know I saw something kind of troubling and then the other one would say like well I saw something pretty troubling too and if you put together all of those friends experiences you

actually would be able to paint a picture of what was really going on in the marriage. But because of cultural mores or just bias in favor of my buddy OJ is a good guy nobody sits down and says like hey guys do you mind if we talk about this all together and like let's figure out what we should do. So a really great example of this kind of behavior and this kind of Rashomon effect is that Nicole and OJ and their friends are on vacation in Hawaii right before New Year's Eve of 1988. Okay. And according to OJ's friend Tom who's quoting Sheila Weller's book there were these two homosexual guys sitting at a table next to us. Oh my gosh. Now Nicole liked to talk to certain types of people sometimes she would just pick people out.

It was like OJ's thing except he'd talk to anybody just to talk. Nicole was more selective. She did have a cool aloofness about her. Now OJ for one thing does not like homosexuals. Right. And number two the two of them had been going through their horrible AIDS conversations and I'll add here that during Nicole's pregnancies OJ had a had escalated from just sleeping with all kinds of random women to having a long-term affair with Tani Cattain which was also an escalatory thing between them because keeping with the trend of love actually references things would happen like she found this beautiful jewelry that she assumed he had bought for her but really it was for Tani Cattain and she later saw Tani wearing it in a photo.

I know. Wait what's the AIDS? What's the AIDS scare? So the AIDS conversations are because also during this time Nicole is starting to refuse sex to OJ which really makes him mad and to say I'm really really scared that you're going to get AIDS and you're going to give me AIDS because you refuse to be tested and you refuse to work on them with me or with anyone else. Jesus Christ. So it's like a completely reasonable fear. Right. It's kind of amazing that didn't happen. Right. Aside from everything else we've talked about she's living with I think a significant amount of anxiety that OJ is going to give her HIV. Jesus. Okay. So the way that OJ's friend Tom remembers this conversation Nicole was having with the homosexuals is so one guy's sitting there

and he's got lesions on his hands and he's talking about how this is his lover and he's dying. Nicole who's holding Justin is talking to them sympathetically and I'm watching OJ and he's livid. Oh shit. Denise who is also there when Sheila Weller talks to her is like they didn't have lesions and the reason perhaps that OJ's friend Tom is remembering it that way is because one of the guys gives little baby Justin a kiss on the forehead and OJ gets furious and grabs Justin and starts storming out to the parking lot. Jesus. And then Nicole follows and according to Tom quote, Nicole really started raising shit screaming and yelling. It was embarrassing. Lou and Judy went oh god not again. But in Denise's interpretation Nicole doesn't embarrass OJ.

She leaves a bullying OJ. She says we sat in OJ's rental car. Nicole and OJ in the front, me and AC in the back. They were fighting and OJ was screaming at Nicole and then she said I don't need to take this and she got out of the car and got into my parents car. And so we have an incident where the friend of the husband remembers him protecting his son from a guy with like weeping lesions on his body and then he's going out to the parking lot and his harpy of a wife is yelling at him and everyone's like oh no Nicole yelling at OJ again like always. Right. Right. Classic Nicole and Denise is like didn't see any lesions. Yeah. Don't remember Nicole yelling at him. So people remember things differently you know when we see what we what we want to see. We really do.

And so back from Hawaii Nicole and OJ go out on New Year's Eve with Marcus Allen who is a younger pro football player who is kind of OJ's protege. Okay. Who kind of always flirts with Nicole and Nicole always shuts it down but she kind of has told her friends like I really like Marcus Allen. I mean I never do anything because I'm married and I respect the sacred bonds of marriage but I really like Marcus Allen. And so they go out to dinner and come back and according to what Nicole says later about what happens when they come home is that they've been drinking they start fighting. Nicole has found a bracelet that OJ bought for Tani Cattain so she's upset about that and OJ telling his friends about it according to Sheila Weller's book.

Doesn't say anything about the jewelry but says that they start fooling around and then quote when it came time for her to give me some head she said no can you believe that shit? What? What happens after that escalates after he gets upset because she refuses him sex and according to him there's a mutual wrestling type situation and according to her he punches her in the head and hits her. Yeah mutual wrestling come on that's like me mutually wrestling with the rock. Like when you're a woman and you refuse sex from someone who really wants to have sex with you and then you're like let's do mutual wrestling instead of the sex. Yeah. When you're trying to get someone to not have sex with you and you accomplish that by attacking

them. Yeah. So two police officers come to the door at 3.30 and here's the police report. Officers Maluski and Edwards received a 911 radio call. Female being beaten at 360 North Rockingham could be heard over the phone. Upon arrival my partner and I could not enter the above location due to the locked electronic gates. My partner phoned the residents and was told by a housekeeper that everyone was fine and the police were not needed. Yeah. My partner told the housekeeper that we needed to speak with the victim to determine if she needed our assistance. A female who's the housekeeper said that everyone was fine and that we were not needed. I told her that I must see and speak to the woman who had dialed 911 and I would not

leave until I did. And the 911 call is the operator answers and just hears screaming in the background and the sound of someone being hit. It's absolutely horrifying to listen to. So Officer Edwards is arguing with the housekeeper and trying to get into the residence and then the report continues. About that time Nicole Simpson came running out of some bushes near her house. She was wearing only a bronze sweat type pants. She had mud down the right leg of her pants. She ran across the driveway to a post containing the gate release button. She collapsed and pushed the button hard several times. Jesus it's like out of a fucking horror movie. Yeah another theme for us. She was yelling during this time he's going to kill me. He's going to kill me.

As she said this the gate opening she ran out to me. She grabbed me and hung on to me. She cried nervously and she repeated he's going to kill me. I asked her who was going to kill her. She replied OJ. I did not know this was OJ Simpson's home but at this point I felt she might have met OJ Simpson. I asked her do you mean OJ Simpson the football player. Oh my god. It's like is that how relevant is that at this very moment in time I wonder. I mean right is it I guess I guess it's I mean you do need to know but like right focus on her for a second. Maybe I don't know. I'm not a cop. It's like hey I follow him on Instagram like maybe now's not the time Steve. And then the report continues. Nicole Simpson told us that the suspect

her husband OJ Simpson had beaten her up. She stated that he had slapped her with both open and closed fists kicked her with his feet and pulled her hair. Nicole Simpson also stated that the suspect OJ Simpson yelled I'll kill you. Officer Edwards I asked her if he had a gun. She said he's got lots of guns. Yikes. You know she's she's visibly injured. There's cuts and bruises and the imprint of a hand on her neck. Right. This is not a he said she said situation. This is like anyone looking at the situation would be like holy shit this dude's trying to kill her. Yeah well I mean when someone attacks you and they beat you up and and they say I'm going to kill you I'm going to kill you. I mean they're not being subtle. Yes. There's no subtext

there and Nicole is you know talking to the police and according to the report she kept saying you never do anything about him. You talk to him and then leave. I want him arrested. I want him out so I can get my kids. At around this time OJ Simpson appears. He yells I don't want that woman sleeping in my bed anymore. I got two women and I don't want that woman in my bed anymore and then the police tell him that Nicole wants him arrested. He starts yelling that he did not beat her up and he says the police have been out here eight times before and now you're going to arrest me for this. This is a family matter. Why do you want to make a big deal out of it? We can handle it. Jesus. And then they allow him to go inside and get dressed and he flees

and gets in his car and drives away. So okay and then what do they do? They took five units out looking for him but they couldn't find him and Nicole at this point has signed a crime report and has her injuries photographed at the West LA police station. This is more than has ever happened before in terms of police involvement in terms of in terms of like witnesses. So is this the New Year's Eve incident that she's talking about in her letter? This is the New Year's Eve incident and this is the one that also seemed to have changed things for her. What happens after this? Do they just like good luck see you next time? Like what's the aftermath of this? Well it's I mean it's like her resolve is slowly eroded because O.J. comes back and she

has him staying in the guest house for like three months but he's on the property. She has Denise come over and take pictures of her injuries as well as the police photos and she shows them to her dad and according to Sheila Weller's book he's like well you can make it work. No fucking way really at this point? Yeah yeah it's based on some understanding of marriage that I don't understand right I think it's based on the idea that like if you marry someone then like you have to stay married to them. Right and also I guess this you know that like if you don't know what it's like to be in a relationship with someone who you literally fear could kill you then like you can't know what it's like to feel that way. Yeah I think that's probably also true. It's so weird

to put like the institution of marriage above the actual experience of someone in a marriage. Yeah and so after this Nicole also starts talking to Ron Ship who's a friend of O.J.'s who works for the LAPD and he starts talking to her and helping her out and becomes kind of an ally to her but he's still O.J. still has his highest allegiance because you know continuing that theme. Yeah she tells him she's scared that he's gonna kill her one day and Ron says no he won't. This is what happens over and over again. Yeah he's such a nice guy my buddy O.J. he could never do that yeah. Yeah or because I mean really it's it's fair also that like all of us as people I sure I'm sure have a bias where we we like to imagine or we like to assume that the

people that we love couldn't kill anyone. Right. That's not true. Yeah well yeah I mean in general it is but. No it's not anyone could kill someone it's just that the conditions of our lives generally don't push us to that but like if I move around a certain number of factors in your life I can get you to kill someone. That's true I do get really mad when people count their pennies in front of me at the grocery store. I think we all systematically underestimate the extent to which our behaviors are affected by our circumstances in like a million long and short term ways but I mean from what I know about crime from researching this white collar crime article for so long is that most crimes from premeditated securities fraud to like domestic abuse

crimes of passion type thing are very very circumstantial and that very few criminologists believe in this idea of like good people and bad people it's just there's clearly individuals matter but the circumstances tend to matter far more. Yeah and you know and the fact that most murders are just so boring you know most people are on death row because you know they did something like shooting a clerk during an armed robbery for some tiny amount of money. Right. That's just youth and impulsivity and possibly substances and possibly desperation and yeah most instances of a human taking another human's life are for you know not for unique or dramatic reasons. Right. Right. Yeah and so all that you know

speaks to the way that Nicole and OJ's friend Ron Ship who's literally a police officer you know doesn't recognize the killer in his midst because he's not the killer in his midst until after he's killed people and right right then there you are. I mean this is the aftermath of this is interesting because she ultimately ultimately not much comes of it she doesn't go public she seems to think about it and she tells Ron Ship that she has photos that she she's thought about sending to the National Enquirer or that she's going to maybe send to them if if he ever beats her again but you know I mean she has these desires but she also still wants to make it work and is and is afraid of leaving as we mentioned in the last episode she doesn't want OJ to lose

any of his endorsements and so she actually at one point gets on the phone with Hertz and tells him that it was not a big deal and that they shouldn't take his endorsement away. No way yeah whoa and they don't want to and so they don't you know like they have every incentive to believe what she tells them because he's been the face of their company for over a decade at this point right you know and that's worked out very well for everyone involved so it's also so dark to think about what would have happened if she had come forward because yeah it's not clear like that would have made things any better like would anyone have listened to her would anyone have cared like it's not even clear to me that he would have lost his endorsement if she would have

come forward because it would have been seen as a he said she said thing the media would have discredited her she would have been cast as like a ditzy model brainless blah blah blah in the way that like this is the entire theme of our show of like she would have been tarred as sort of out to get him or out to get money or trying to position herself for a lucrative divorce or something and then he would have done his like i'm oj i'm a nice guy schtick and like it probably would have worked i mean he had a huge fan base and i don't think anybody in the public would have seen this as an escalation of existing activities because they had no idea of all the signs of this earlier those exact tactics worked extremely well when he was on trial for killing

her yeah so yeah exactly and there was a lot more evidence of domestic abuse after the murder than before yeah so yeah it's extremely reasonable yeah to imagine all that happening that he would he would oj his way out of everything so why why cause yourself that pain if nothing will be different and if you only hurt yourself yeah but then she does eventually leave him though right so is this the incident that precipitates the separation not really they don't separate for a while i think it's a it's a maybe not a turning point but a crucial or maybe it is a turning point i don't know but it seems crucial in some way because she starts talking to ron ship about the abuse and ron ship teaches about domestic violence to other police officers and so he

and nicole start talking about abuse dynamics wait so he's like a domestic abuse specialist within the la pd what yes think about the fact that like this is there are some top minds involved and they weren't helpful ultimately you know they were a little helpful but wow not as much as was needed so again like the question of like why didn't she ask for help and it's like well she did yeah like a lot of times and it's like we can't put the responsibility on her or on any other abuse victim to like always be the one who advocates for themselves to always be in an active position here like we you can't ask people to always know that they need the health that they need yeah it's fascinating you know we often don't actually it's wild to me that an expert in this

somebody who knows the field and knows like the academic research presumably wouldn't have just said get the fuck out of there it's never gonna get better and it's only gonna escalate and this has been going on for whatever 10 years now and like it's not going to change so you need to leave it's crazy to me that he was just like well oj seems like a nice guy you should probably stick with it i mean that's just unfathomable or it's extremely fathomable but you know it's fathomable but it's deep i mean i think he feels that way partially but i think he feels conflicted about it and also and oj is his friend yeah ron ship is in like a kind of low level friendship with oj like he does a lot of favors for him he runs license plates for him like he he does stuff for

him right so the consequences to oj ultimately for the new year's eve beating end up being a $470 fine which is significantly less than i spent on car maintenance last week and 120 hours of community service which he also ends up kind of ojing his way through a little bit because he does like celebrity fundraising as opposed to like right you know manual labor or something it's the police report of this available like is there any news coverage of this of like because our court documents are public right so like wouldn't there have been some news coverage there's a little bit of coverage at the time but there's just not very much interest in it right what chris Jenner later says chris Jenner who is at the time chris kardashian is that after they

reconcile which oj is in the guest house january to march 89 and then moves back into the main house in april and they kind of come back together then chris Jenner says that after that nicole had really just kind of given up given up on resisting getting back together with him like given up on trying to make the marriage better basically like she didn't talk about trying to get him to stop cheating anymore wow but maybe like she also reached the kind of rock bottom of like acknowledging how bad it was god and starting to try and get away cool so she starts making plans to leave oj according to shila weller in 1991 and oj doesn't really take it super seriously he starts off describing it to people as a phase and says that you know she can go off she can party she can do

whatever but if she ever has sex with anyone else then he can't take her back got the density of just like toxic bullshit and this relationship is incredible it's like from which no light can escape i think it shows that in some really basic way he's the only real person to himself like he it doesn't connect for him that she has feelings right or that like she hurts the way he hurts that's probably behind so much domestic abuse too just this like yeah failure of object permanence yeah you know or you have some awareness of the other person's feelings but your feelings are so much bigger than theirs you know but anyway nicole starts she establishes friendship with her friend robin greer in early 1991 specifically because she's a single woman and she like calls

her and says she's ending her marriage and she wants to know single women and you know be among them yeah so they get divorced in 1992 so three years after the new year's eve incident yes previously nicole had signed a prenup that took seven to nine months to iron out oh wow which meant that she did not get i mean i don't know i don't know how much 1992 money is but oj hung on to most of the assets let's put it that way she got child support she got a condo in san francisco that he owned he hung on to the main house okay so she moves to a place pretty close by oj's to you know stay close by for the kids and also you know they're they're pretty enmeshed and so he kind of processes the divorce by first being in denial and then swearing that he's gonna get her back

and calling nicole according to a former babysitter 10 or 15 or 20 times a night oh over and over again and also starting to show up in the bushes outside of her house literally yeah literally literally her friends call it bush syndrome what the fuck like literally wait outside and see if like cars are arriving or leaving kind of thing no i think he it might be that he he goes there when he knows he's there with a date okay or he might he might just also be there generally i really don't know mike we don't know there things there's it's might be lost knowledge like he might just be out there a lot he might just be there when she's sitting there like reading a book clipping her toenails wow it's so fucking weird i mean i mean this is clearly coming from

my own place of like never having experienced one of these relationships myself but it just seems like i don't know it's like nicole can't do anything right it's like when she's there she gets abused and then when she's not there she gets abused yeah of course she can't do anything right yeah so she has this kind of year out and she starts spending more time with friends doing a little bit of partying she has this house on gretna greenway with a pool and eventually this guy kato kalen who she meets at aspen moves into the guest house there and pays reduced rent in exchange for looking after her kids when she needs a babysitter oh so kato kalen was her friend and not oj's friend uh-huh i thought he was like a weird oj hanger on okay

well that's what he becomes but he met nicole um at aspen when she and fray resnick were there partying and according to fey nicole wasn't interested in him romantically but was interested in his friend grand but they kind of became friends and kato kalen as he became famous for during the trial has this kind of like labradoodle quality to him he's kind of like a he's like a doofy guy but he's also very he's strong and fit and he at the time that nicole was running nine miles a day he used to run 10 they would like run into each other while they were jogging wow and so when nicole is living on gretna greenway in this house where you know oj's face will sometimes show up in the window it's nice to have this spare guy around yeah does oj just fucking

loathe kato kalen at this point he doesn't feel great about it but he like maintains good relations with him huh the kids love him so much that they named their new dog kato oh wow which kato kalen says becomes confusing because someone will be like kato and he's like yeah oh she sees dr susan forward who's a therapist who also specializes in the study of abusive relationships and nicole starts reading dr forwards men who hate women and the women who love them oh i've heard of this book yes and she later on will keep multiple copies of the same book by dr forward in her home so that she can like never panic and be without a copy she can like just grab one whatever room she's in man so what dr forward tells nicole is that she has to completely

cut off oj it's over no more contact no more taking his calls no more kind of taking the chamberlain approach to appeasing hitler yeah which is what she's been doing yeah and what she says is you know no like she's gonna taper i guess what i'm gonna say is is gonna be so horribly tragically predictable i just feel bad even for saying it but what she says is that you know she thinks that if she does if she gives oj what he wants now then he will back off and leave her alone later and that she can't cut him off all of a sudden because that would hurt his feelings oh man and you know she's right to think that doing that would potentially cause him to be dangerous yeah because ultimately that does seem to be why in the end things escalate yeah so i mean the most

interesting part of the the divorce is that they they reconcile for a while oh in early spring of 1993 you know nicole has been out on her own for about a year now she starts talking to her friends about you know i just i want to go home i miss being home like this isn't my home i want to go back to rockingham i want to go back to being a family and things being the way that they used to be you know because the good stuff gets bigger when you're you're away from it and by this time oj actually has moved on or at least for the time he has and he's gotten serious about this woman paula barbieri who he's dating who's a model who people occasionally mistake for julia robert so things have shaken out pretty well for him yeah and at a certain point you know she's the one who's

calling him and he's the one who's not wanting to take her calls interesting and she makes copies of their their wedding video to send to him to remind him of the good times wow and because launches a full full charm offense of trying to get him back and ultimately in april of 93 she shows up at rockingham and she like drives up to the gate and is like oj oj let me in and he doesn't want to let her in and he comes out and they walk around the neighborhood and she tells him i want to come home and at the end of that walk they decide to make another try and that lasts for a year they're together off and on for for another year after that wow what does he do with the julia roberts looking lady the poor julia roberts looking lady is um basically when he's

trying to make things work with nicole he wants nothing to do with her and then you know when things get difficult he yeah kind of wants her again i have been the julia roberts looking lady to so many people you're surrounded by jason alexander's and you deserve a richard gear but the simpsons have another one of their classic terrible holiday events when they're going to the generous christmas eve party in 1993 when nicole finds a holiday gift basket from paula and gets upset oh and oj is like it's just a gift basket leave me alone why would you assume that a gift basket means i'm seeing her you're the only one woman in my life and then they go to the party and a guy named joseph who and nicole had had a brief relationship with after she divorced oj

is at the party and oj cannot handle it oh no and once the guy you know just is like how could nicole do this to me how could nicole have sex with this person who i was later reminded of the existence of like how could she do this to me you know and and it's totally the logic of a little baby you know like i i feel like the so much abusive behavior is just like the way that little babies get angry at their mothers for not being able to like control the sun and the rain he's angry at nicole for all this stuff yeah also at the time of the holiday party there's also tension because nicole is upset because she has made plans to move from the gretna green house to another house in brentwood on bundy which it's very weird to me that a major place name in the

story is bundy and no one at the time ever talked about it oh yeah right it's like she moved to like john wane gacy avenue but she's she's upset at oj because now that she's moving to this house that doesn't have a guest house to oj's like kato like i really don't think it would be right for you to be you know living in a house with my ex-wife right you know because a man and a woman living together it's just improper and also she's asking you for rent and you can live in my house free and kato in his telling is like okay and just kind of obliviously you know moves in with oj and okay nicole never talks to him again what really yeah he was a man who she had in the house who who was protection against this guy who she was physically afraid of and he just for a few

hundred dollars in rent money because oj once again like flashed his oj charm and kato just immediately melted and and was like sure wow like didn't stand up for her at all didn't even maybe think that he had the capacity to do that or that she needed it like maybe was just clueless about how how bad things were yeah did he know about the abuse this is actually a good time to have you listen to something for me oh okay i'm gonna i want to do a grizzly man with you oh god because there's audio of the 911 call that nicole brown Simpson makes in 1993 from the house at grudna green oh god it's gonna bump me out so much it will i'm gonna have you watch it and just relay your reactions to it okay because i don't want to play it here but i want to just do something

to convey kind of what it is like as a adult human being who can who confronts a lot of human trauma for a living to witness this i'm stealing myself right now i'm sending it to you on the skype thing oh there it is okay okay 911 call by nicole simpson okay it's two minutes and 36 seconds along i'm starting it now she's saying he's back please oh he's in a white bronco he's at the gate oh god oh no they're asking if he's the sportscaster yeah yeah although i like how this lady sounds unimpressed oh man oh my god he's gonna beat the shit out of me dispatchers asking if he has any weapons uh he went home now he's back i don't want anything to happen she's like really distraught

oh god he just broke the back door in i try to get him out of the bedroom because my kids are sleeping in there oh my god there's yelling in the background holy shit oh and she's saying the kids are sleeping and he's screaming yeah oh my god holy shit you can't really tell what he's saying but it's something like you don't mean shit to me or something oh my god fucking hell the dispatcher asked is he upset are you fucking kidding me oh god uh and then it ends when she says it always comes back fucking hell that sucked yeah i just did that to you i'm sorry now you have to play that tape for three teens and then you won't die in a week oh my god god it's just horrible it's like right there it's like right there in front of you how enraged he is

yeah like you can't really hear that much of what he's saying right she's saying you know okay please be quiet the kids are sleeping yeah and there's so many stories of like this going on you know and her trying to to keep him down because she doesn't want the kids to hear it or she doesn't want the kids to see him be abusive to her and what he's talking about in the background is that well why does it matter if the kids are sleeping and he's making noise if she once gave a blowjob to a guy named keith when the kids were sleeping upstairs what he knows about because he was spying on them at that time holy shit really yeah dude ah which is like one of the key issues that he fixates on oh so did this happen before they got back together is that what

he's not about or did this happen recently well she and keith was after the divorce before the reconciliation okay so this is like a while back yeah and no it is it's history um and after they get back together he also is like let's clear the air i'll tell you about all my sexual partners and you tell me about yours and then we'll have a clean slate and i definitely won't hang it over your head for the rest of your life dude and guess this thing of like you know that that he's using the kids right as a wedge right which is going to be a theme from now on that like it's not that he's expressing ownership of her it's not that he's being angry and violent and possessive it's that it's the kids right how can she possibly parent and have sex at the same time it's impossible

it's like this isn't about the affordable housing that's being built it's about preserving neighborhood character and so to answer your question about kato and does he know about the abuse something i only learned when i read a book called kato kailyn cullen the whole truth is that kato kailyn shows up at the house while this is going on oh my god while the while this 911 call is in progress jesus okay what does he do to quote from kato kailyn the whole truth at first kato decided to stay out of it and went into the guest house before he closed the door however he took another look to make sure nicole was all right and realized that oj was still in a rage oj's yelling became louder as he moved closer to her kato decided he had to do

something after all sure enough as soon as oj saw kato coming he turned and continued his hurang shouting as if he were trying to somehow convince kato that he oj were really the wrong party in all this so he does actually he he helps out by distracting him right he's waving the flare in front of the tyrannosaurus yeah kato stays with them and then the police come and the police are like what's going on and who's this guy yeah the cops are talking to oj in a fairly friendly way what kato kailyn observes and one of the police officers says yeah i'm married too i know what you mean now for fuck's sake one of the officers asked kato if he can fix the french doors that oj has broken so is this the end of their reconciliation do they go back to being divorced

again after this no i feel like it's like it's it's not that that they're you know like once she starts thinking about trying to divorce it's like that takes a long time to build up to yeah and then once they get divorced like she decides she needs to go back and that they can make it work and then she realizes you know that they really can't but that takes a long time yeah i have friends that have been in the cycle and it takes a long time for them to really believe that they're going to leave it's it's especially when there's kids involved it's it's understandable yeah so this is where i'm going to turn to the gospel of fey resnick is that a name that's familiar to you it sounds familiar but who is she again she was played by connie britain in the ryan murphy show

okay she was a good friend of nicole's and she published a book co-written with a tabloid journalist named mike walker called nicole brown simpson the private diary of a life interrupted okay and so fey resnick's book is interesting because she was a close friend of nicole brown simpson and also was someone who according to her accounts oj called a lot when he and nicole were on the outs when they were fighting nicole and oj would both call her and so she has insight into him and seems also to be one of the people that he really didn't intimidate okay or who you know whose charisma didn't work on her the way it worked on other people okay so fey resnick's book comes out it causes a big scandal because of its potential role in biasing the jury even

though it would bias them toward the prosecution so it's interesting to think about how much of the scandal is based on not what fey resnick has written about the contents of nicole brown simpson's marriage but about who fey resnick is because she's a like relatively new los angeles socialite who is considered kind of new money and she's three days into cocaine addiction rehab at the time of nicole's murder okay and what everyone focuses on when this book comes out and what everyone has focused on since then in a way that made me think when i read it that it really wouldn't have any actual content and be surprised as hell when it did what everyone focuses on is the fact that it's scandalous and it talks about nicole partying and having sex

and there's gay stuff in it wait what i just like sat up in my chair what what's what's this uh-huh it is basically fey resnick right well let me let me i'll actually just read it to you this is a really great passage and i think it's like what people thought of in 1994 when they thought of why they didn't care for fey resnick and it's for the same reason that i enjoy her tremendously so she and nicole have gone out dancing it's spring of 1994 and then they go to fey's place and fey writes i was in a mellow mood that night as i walked through the door i hit the stereo switch madonna's erotica filled the house and ten points of candlelight glowed in every room amazing god i loved my house i had decorated it to reflect the wildly romantic exotic

persona that i rarely revealed it's done in gold leaf and black very Egyptian with sculptures downfilled sofas with tassels and fringes light carpeting zebra skins black and gold roman and Egyptian chairs massive oriental screen and a magnificent oriental desk the black and gold motif carries into the bedroom my custom made bed is roman also black and gold covered with overstuffed down pillows and a wonderful bed roll the whole place is an expression of romance she's stalling for time what is what is all this why do we need all this scene setting i love it i feel like i'm watching soap nut nicole had never seen my place totally ablaze with candlelight when we walked in she said wow it's

so sensual i laughed my ex-husband paul had said almost the same thing years ago when we were living in san francisco he'd spent a hundred thousand dollars decorating a huge bath complete with jacuzzi sometimes i'd go there in the middle of the night when paul was asleep and spend hours alone one night paul woke up at about three o'clock in the morning not finding me in bed he came to the bathroom and opened the door he gasped when he saw the room bathed in the light of 15 large candles the cacuzzi had rose petals scattered over the water and i was sitting in it reading sigmund Freud as new egg music as new egg music filled the room paul stood in the doorway a moment drinking it all in then he stepped inside closed the door and said my god this is the most sexual scene i've

ever seen in my life it's like pornography dialogue this is awesome i love it it's it's it's it's a it's erotica dialogue and this is like made fun of in the press later on like fey resnick's decor choices and i think this sums up kind of how she's seen in the media in 94 she's like she's a party girl she's extravagant she's rich she's new money she's into Freud and you know she's she's also someone who like who writes a book where she's like yeah i was in treatment for cocaine addiction and i was free-basing and stuff okay i like her that's that's all i'm gonna say and she also just you know throughout throughout this book so much of any story is hindsight like she's writing this about her best friend and she's writing it after her murder so like you're gonna give hindsight a

lot of benefit of the doubt at that point but what she talks about here is you know is meeting nicole and and immediately understanding that she's she's carrying a lot of pain with her and that she like that she even nicole doesn't know how nicole feels yeah and it seems you know just comes across in this book as someone who has like an unusual amount of emotional intelligence for the cast of characters that we're looking at here and so what happens after they get to to phase sensual house and nicole goes to phase closet and picks out a nightie and they are sitting on the bed talking and then fey says nick suddenly leaned over and started kissing me then she writes nicole pulled back and looked into my eyes i said i don't know how to do this i don't know how i was in a

state of shock but the shock wasn't strong enough to make me stop despite underlying apprehension i was enjoying this then i wasn't scared anymore this was nicole it was wonderful being with her it was more a spiritual bonding than anything else i guess felt like all the barriers were down between us it was okay then she writes that uh they fall asleep and they wake up and see a flashlight in the window and they're like oh my god it's oj it's oj again it is oj again spying on us again but it's just the police because they're playing madonna's erotica too loud oh nice so they turn it down and laugh and fall asleep and so yeah that's that's the story uh well i'll i'll ask you what do you think 1994 media did with this information well this is what i'm thinking as

you're saying it it's like this kind of nice moment of communion yeah between two people that are both clearly going through some shit and maybe i mean who knows what was going through their heads but it's like it seems like just a nice moment of affection between two people and it feels true to like how people end up making out with their friends totally and how you can also have moments where like the only way to access the kind of emotional intimacy that you need is sexually yeah yeah i mean i don't know the spoilers but it's you know one of the themes we keep coming across in the show is that the actual worst sin that you can do in public life is be tacky it's not necessarily being immoral or being cruel it's things like i was reading Freud in my hot tub and

that sort of aesthetic objection that people have to you as a person ends up overshadowing everything else right like if you're a woman with big hair and you say like a really famous preacher raped me all they're gonna hear is like oh some membo says there was something something sexual something but look how big her hair is yeah look at her shoulder pads like that's ignore what she's saying exactly and so yeah i just from my own cynicism with all of these stories it's like the fucking details about like the candles and the music and the hot tub are like so they're such catnip to people that want to throw out this story yeah and then the fact that like at the crime scene after nicole's murder the police find all these candles around the tub and like

this is written about a lot and also used by the defense as proof that like it's because she's expecting a sex guest but even if people aren't making that argument it's like she had so many candles yeah her bathroom so when you think about it the murder is not that sad like what and like elizabeth wurzel like writing about it like because mentions the candles like not even making the argument that they're tacky but in a list of things that she's clearly calling tacky that's not even fucking tacky that's actually delightful candles are nice yeah what the hell and it's like well you know sometimes you have to beat up your wife or you like stock her a little because you've just gotten divorced and you see her as your property and it's like understandable

behavior and it's like it's not great but like it's it happens you know right but if you have candles yeah and you're a woman and you make out with other women then like who do you think you are so does fave resnick in her book also describe a lot of this abuse too so she's corroborating nicole's general account of like how terrible this relationship was oh yeah the same networks that are like we've forgotten about nicole we're like and meanwhile crackhead fave resnick right buying more candles it's like well she did the thing that you're complaining about no one doing like can you hear what you're saying right like she actually is remembering nicole i think the thing i most love about fave resnick's book is that it feels to me like fave resnick you know maybe it

has like occurred to her that the press would become fixated on the lesbian part of the book or the part where fave resnick talks about her own cocaine use or says quote nicole did cocaine once in a blue moon but she did like her tequila shots okay or talks about going out dancing with nicole because that's not allowed or the fact that nicole enjoys sex and is a sexual person you know i think she probably had some awareness of the fact that these were things that people would have a hard time handling but what i also feel is that that was not her focus as she was writing this i feel like what her testimony is about ultimately is she has this genuine good faith desire to help the public understand her friend nicole and wants them to do that and in

order to do that she has to explain that nicole wasn't sexually satisfied by other men after she had this amazing sexual connection with oj simpson like it's kind of like fave resnick was like a lawyer who just brought in evidence that she didn't realize would make the jury hate her client okay it's fascinating you know because it was so hard in the 90s and i think to some extent today to actually say the phrase out loud that sometimes people who have sex and use drugs get murdered and sometimes people who are kind of tacky are correct like that's something that we still need to remind ourselves about and also like nice ladies and good moms go out dancing and use cocaine i mean it's also like it is beyond hilarious to me that like in los angeles in the

early 90s there's this like response on behalf of media people who were in charge of making news of like using cocaine unimaginable like who could imagine using cocaine and it's like are you fucking kidding me who can imagine doing the verb that is most associated with the previous decade that we have just lived through yeah how dare you yeah and i mean another another part of the story is that fey goes to rehab for cocaine addiction because nicole helps organize an intervention for her and it's like we love you and you're a friend and you need to go to rehab and i will quit drinking and doing drugs with you and we will be cleaned together wow two things that people are unanimous on when they talk about nicole is that she was a great mom and she was a

great friend like that's really how she seems to be remembered by people that she was like someone who showed up for other people which is to me especially amazing because she wasn't really able to show up for herself well also i mean the whole lesbian quote-unquote scandalous lesbian thing sort of plays into this it's a way of downplaying nicole's friendship and support that she's offering and receiving to this female friend of hers we're like oh lesbians rather than seeing these as complicated people who may be very specific nouns don't necessarily apply to yeah and then just like you know and fey resnick is like she's someone who lacks the self-awareness to realize the public wants an apology from her that if she wants to come you know with this

message of like think about my friend and understand her as a person and like know her and love her like she essentially would have had to like scrub her account of anything that made it real yeah and not be writing about her friend but be constructing like a perfect victim right narrative one of the other things that she talks about that the media of course fixates on is something that many of nicole's other friends have talked about elsewhere which is that after nicole and oj finally got divorced she did have an affair with marcus allen okay which she has denied and that she really liked him she really just felt good around him and that she was seeing him again in may in the weeks before she was killed and again it's like you know it's it's like the real story is

like this deep dark sad story but the part that people fixate on is nicole talking about how marcus is the only man aside from oj who has really sexually satisfied her and she tells a story about she and nicole are walking along the beach and nicole picks up a piece of driftwood and is like this is marcus and fey resnick means realizes that she's referring to like girth oh my god okay and so after that for like weeks or months one of them will according to fey just have to say driftwood and they'll all start laughing and this is just like fey resnickest includes this it's just like an innocent detail it's just like nicole was attached to oj for many reasons and sex was one of them and she also you know turned to men sexually for validation and one of the reasons that she

was drawn to marcus allen in the last weeks of her life despite you know the danger was because of the driftwood thing like i feel like that's what what fey resnick just like wants us to know yeah and maybe didn't realize that people would be like so you're telling me right that this alleged victim yeah had sex and liked it and like spoke about it like spoke about it in a way that we don't want women to speak about it yeah yeah so what is so what is fey resnick's description of sort of the last days like the run up to the murder yeah what is the narrative so this is uh april of 1994 so it's right after oj and nicole have reconciled and now they're on vacation in cabo with a bunch of their friends including fey resnick and have just been like loving and all

over each other and really happy and fey writes that nicole says fey i think this is it we're getting back together for good and they hug and everyone's happy and then fey writes the very next night oj screwed everything up we were all at carlos and carlies and oj suddenly started to flirt with a trampy looking young blonde he did it openly enjoying himself hugely not seeming to care that everyone was watching i looked at nicole for a reaction she looked back at me and chris who was sitting with us chris and i both said something like can you believe this nicole said nothing i knew my friends so well she was blocking and nobody could block unpleasantness like nicole the next day most of our group hung out down at the beach snorkeling and playing with

the kids suddenly oj started telling everybody that nicole's biggest fear in life is frogs most of our friends knew about nicole's phobia so strong so overwhelming that anyone who knew her well enough wouldn't tease her about it she loathed frogs frogs okay i get that i am very freaked out by frogs i remain haunted by pictures i've seen of like a chinese child holding a frog as big as he is like that's i don't like me really okay i get it yeah that's how i feel about abandonment so yeah so fey continues oj acted as if it was the biggest joke in the world he told everybody hey can you believe this it's just so ironic that my wife's biggest fear in life is frogs and i've ended up starring in a tv series called the frog men oj threw back his head and laughed and looked

at us all with his happy smiling face that's what made his next word seem so incongruous so unsettling hey baby he jived at nicole i'm the frog man now what do you think about that two minutes later oj got up and left this time nicole wasn't blocking she turned to me and said i don't think that's funny he finds this to be funny this is not funny at all it's cruel i'm afraid this man will kill me someday the next day oj flew to Puerto Rico for filming on the frogman that evening we went to the palmilla restaurant for dinner as we sipped cappuccino nicole floored me when she said calmly that's it i can't do it i can't be with oj seriously it's over i feel that if we get back together he'll end up killing me i don't think he's changed

wow and it seems like after this she really was like got closer and closer to decisively ending things and did so fairly soon after and what feels real to me about why that happened is that it was like such a tiny thing the frog thing you mean yeah like somehow don't you feel like it's the small things that yeah reveal the truth more somehow totally yeah what is it about the frog thing do you think for her i can just see it being so fucking belittling it's really not that much to ask yeah if someone says like hey you know i'm afraid of like whatever toothpaste like it's really not that big of a deal to just not bring up toothpaste around somebody like it's basic human decency right but he can't even clear that bar like the lowest imaginable bar it's like

just don't tease people let their frogs it's fine it's not that hard yeah you're right like it's just like it's like it's such a minimal thing and then it's almost like the big stuff you can excuse more easily you're like i was wasn't myself and i was full of rage and i couldn't control it and but then if like if as if yourself is still just being mean and it's just like seizing the remotest possible opportunity to be me yeah yeah so after that they describes her as having really strengthened resolve and then let me pull up my timeline i have a color coded timeline oh my god yeah it's deeper shades of pink for increasing danger level so they come back from cabo and after that she's like i'm done and then so you know some more significant things happen she goes to

her nephew's first communion on may 7th and on may 8th she makes out her will on may 14th it's her and oj's daughter sydney's first communion and oj doesn't come which she's according to people who are interviewed later really hurt by again not that much to fucking ask yeah how many first communions is your eldest child going to have oran thal james clear the bar but then she gets pneumonia um the week of her birthday which is may 19th and oj launches a charm offenses and is like taking the kids to and from school which like because he's he does so little as a parent is like wow yeah and he brings her sees candies which are her favorite and gives her a bracelet and and fey resnick is observing this and is like wow like this is a godsend for oj because

nicole literally can't get out of bed and he can like forcibly charm her so he's doing the equivalent of like visiting iowa over and over again like going to state fairs and shit just like campaigning because corn dog after corn dog and then she she basically breaks it off as soon as she's well enough she breaks it off on may 22nd she gives back the bracelet she tells her friends that she told him she couldn't be bought like it's a very titanic moment yeah also while she's sick ron ship her la pd friend talks to her on the phone and feels feels concerned to her and of course knows a lot about the history of abuse and the marriage a lot more than most other people and wants to visit her but still for whatever reason is like i should really i should ask oj for permission

before i visit nicole what and he calls oj and he's like no it's it's it's it's fine you don't need to see her and he's like okay uh ron i know ron is a complicated ron is a complicated person come on ron yeah okay and then you know after that her friends all say like she really seems done she seems happy she seems like she's moving on and oj launches a charm offensive at paula barbiere the julia roberts looking lady to try and get her back okay and that's a toward the end of the first week of june a few things happen nicole tells a few people that one of the keys to her house has gone missing from her keychain oh shit and she's very worried that oj has it oh shit on june 5th she calls her realtor and also a friend of hers named gene mackenna to give her the news that oj

has just told her that he's going to report her to the irs what which she seems to decide to do after it's clear to him that she's really not coming back and i guess you know to either punish her or maybe in a last-ditch attempt to get her to flee back into his arms jeez and what he's going to report her for is that she had bought this um apartment on bundy drive which she was very proud that she was able to do with the money that she made from the sale of the condo in san francisco because she like negotiated the purchase herself which is like a big adult thing to do and had declared rocking ham as her primary residence on her taxes and the bundy condo is an acquisition that she was going to rent out so oj decided to report her for using the bundy drive condo as her

primary residence which means that she would owe 90 000 which is all the money that she has in the bank so he's essentially vindictively bankrupting her oh my god and this only deepens according to people who are interviewed her resolve to end the relationship and move on because yeah and this is what fey resnick theorizes maybe nicole can stand for him to attack her over and over again but now he's attacking the kids because she's they don't have any money right they're gonna have to move again and so on june 7th nicole calls sojourn shelter which is a domestic violence shelter in la and the person who takes her call says that her ex-husband has been calling her begging her to come back and also stalking her and then he told her several times in the past that if he

caught her with another man he'd kill her and on june 10th nicole and her realtor drive around the neighborhood looking at properties that are within a few minutes drive of oj's house and when they kind of have driven around for a bit and not seen anything that she wants nicole says take me to malibu and they look at a house on a hill overlooking the ocean that nicole can reasonably afford and she's to ride her horse on the beach she's an oc surfer girl one of the things that oj was so critical about was like her canceling at the last minute on events or like not liking doing celebrity hobnobbing stuff with him not liking being part of the kind of hollywood scene that he was trying to be part of because he just like kind of wanted to be with her family or be with her friends or like

you know have more of a homey lifestyle and it feels like this is she wanted to be in her sweat pants she wanted to wear a sweatpants sometimes yeah more than seven pounds give her a fucking break yeah and that they like they went out to malibu and she was like i like this i and nicole like this like me yeah it's like a tiny little form of emancipation yeah and the way jean mackenna describes it later is that they you know they look at the house and nicole really likes it and she just says you know what jean i can do this and so june 12th fey resnick is in rehab before she went she was talking to nicole she was just like you know why don't we just get out of town why don't we just go we can go to cabo for a while we can go wherever we want we have plenty of money

because like she's she's feeling stocked and surveilled as well like anyone who's close to nicole is this kind of part of part of oj's network at this point she's like why don't we just get away and nicole's like no we can't no we can't do that because sydney has a dancer site on june 12th and so sydney is dancing to the music of footloose i really want to know what music from footloose it is but i haven't found that out okay i love it when i say a detail that i think you think is totally irrelevant you're like okay yes next thing no i i literally don't know any song from footloose i've never seen it so like nothing nothing is going to have any metaphorical significance to me you don't know the main song from footloose no i'm an old millennial footloose came out in 1984

i don't know i don't know the footloose anyway okay so sydney is dancing to the music of footloose and oj shows up but comes late he doesn't sit near them and nicole doesn't talk to him fey says that nicole tells her that nicole said to oj fuck off get away from us get out of my life you're not welcome with this family anymore and then after their acidal they go out to the parking lot oj tries to get the browns to pose for a family photo that doesn't work out nicole and the browns are going to go to have dinner at mesaluna which is an italian restaurant in the neighborhood and oj asks to join and nicole tells him that he can't join okay and basically like bars him from the family table and according to another source in shila weller's book oj tells his friend ron

fishman i'm going to get her but good jesus christ and again it's like it's a little thing he wants oj wants to come to dinner but he can't come to dinner they don't want him to come to dinner right but within toxic relationships every little slight becomes a metaphor for something larger yeah because you lose the ability to talk about things in their actual proportion everything becomes like a front in this greater war yeah and it's like it's it's rejection right it doesn't matter how tiny a rejection it is he's being rejected and that's unacceptable yeah i think the logic of this is like it's not that you look at the action the person is actually doing and judge the action it's that you feel what you feel and you think whatever this person is doing

must have caused me to have this feeling and it must be that bad and i have to punish them that much for it right so they don't let oj come to dinner with them he leaves and nicole and her kids and the browns go to dinner at mesaluna where there's a waiter named ron goldman who nicole knows slightly nicole mainly knows him because he's a friend of two guys about his age they're all about 25 named jeff and mike and nicole has kind of hung out with them more and they have gone out to dinner together and she lets them take turns driving her ferrari to and from dinner okay i think is really cute yeah from what jeff and mike say and what nicole's other friends say to sheela weller it seems like they're like the david labans in her life now okay they're like friends platonic friends

hanging out they're yeah they're guy friends and they're also like guys in their early 20s who were having the kind of young adulthood that that she didn't experience yeah and the detail i know about their friendship that i really love the most is that she would call jeff and mike and say what are you guys doing and whoever she called would say well melrose is on in half an hour and then she would go over and watch melrose place with them sweatpants sweatpants this is the sweatpants dream that she's always had yeah that's all anybody wants all anyone wants is to watch melrose place with jeff and mike and not be stalked and and gain more than seven pounds my god but i just love that little prez detail and i love how like in the you know in the press and and at trial it's

you know the kind of impression that the public kept of nicole is like she was a party girl and she was out with her tight dresses and being sexual and doing cocaine and etc and it's like sometimes like yeah and but also she just she would i just love the idea that she would like call them up and and like come over to watch melrose place with these two guys even party girls get to be more than one thing i feel like that's generalizable we're all so many things so anyway so they're at the restaurant and she says hi to ron who's a friend of her melrose place friends fey has written that nicole kind of had a crush on ron and that fey felt it was faded that they would sleep together one day because ron is like i don't know if he's done

modeling or not he's cute oh yeah no he's he's gorgeous which i think also doesn't work out well for him in the media but she says hi to ron and she has dinner with her family at mesaluna and or they're talking about if she gets this malibu house then everyone can come visit her in malibu and all the family members can be together you know there's just this air of possibility things could really change for the better like good things are really possible she says goodbye to her family and takes the kids to benning jerry's for ice cream and then takes the kids home and then according to fey resnick's book they have a call sometime after nine and fey says the last thing that nicole says to her is i love you and i'll visit you in rehab tomorrow and can i bring

you anything like seize candy maybe fey talks about undergoing hypnosis to try and recall every single detail of that phone call but you just can't remember every single thing and then they ended the phone call and apparently after she talks to fey by my estimation of the timeline she gets a call from her mother who dropped her glasses outside the restaurant and who wants nicole to pick them up tomorrow and so nicole calls the restaurant and catches ron goldman and asks him to bring them by because her house is only a few minutes away oh and so he takes them and goes to his house and changes and then heads over to her house okay and the next thing that anyone hears is sometime between around 1015 and around 1030 her dog kato started to make

a sound that one witness described as a plaintiff whale okay and the next day denise brown gets a call telling the family that nicole has been murdered and she says it was oj and fey resnick the next day is informed at rehab that nicole has been murdered and says it was oj and the story that we all know begins i don't know where to end this i have an ending question okay that we can do like a clever little to be continued with oh boy so what what strikes me about this entire story is that the way that you've described it it's actually a pretty open and shut case that's what everyone thought my yeah tell that to poor marcia clark right exactly because it's like how much more evidence do you need right like even without the physical

evidence what i feel is like if someone else killed her it's only because they got there somehow first yeah you know like if someone else would have murdered her it would be like they only would have managed it by beating oj to it i mean yeah yeah that this was preordained but like yeah you look at it you look at the ramp up to it and it feels like dominoes yeah i mean it's really clear yeah and yet i've also i know from your text messages that you also think that like the verdict in the case wasn't necessarily wrong or wasn't necessarily unfair and so it sounds like there's sort of two different stories going on where there's the sort of personal story of oj and col and there's the larger story of everything else that was going on in la at the

time yeah and i think that i mean with the the way that we're approaching this is kind of showing us as as we're getting into the story that like a trial is in some way very separate from the events that it's about her life ended on june 12 1994 and everything that happened after that she wasn't a part of right i don't know yeah and i think this gets into the question of like what is a trial for what is a verdict for and to what extent i mean i another thing i would say about this verdict is that it makes us think about how the law is not just prescriptive but expressive you know i mean a verdict is not always primarily about the the case right or about the crime that precipitated the trial right from my understanding of what i know about the trial that's basically

what ends up happening as it becomes about all this other stuff spoiler spoiler so i think with that spoiler now that we ruined our next couple episodes uh i think we're gonna leave it there yeah so yes join us next time hopefully in your sweatpants you have the right yeah wear some sweatpants gain eight pounds read some Freud light some candles yeah read some Freud and and light a candle for Nicole oh you