Kim Kardashian has recalled a heated phone call between Kris Jenner and O.J. Simpson during the infamous murder trial. She reflected on the verdict in the infamous O.J. Simpson trial and said that it “tore our family apart.”
During years of interviews with author Jonathan Van Meter for Citizen Kim: The Woman Who Created the Future, she discussed the 1995 murder trial of O.J. Simpson. According to Entertainment Weekly, Kardashian stated, “I always felt that my parents, since their divorce, were so amicable and always wanted to have a united front.”
Kris and Robert Kardashian, Kim’s late father, divorced in 1991. While they initially remained amicable, their relationship changed after Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman were killed on June 12, 1994. Robert was part of the former NFL player’s defense team.
“I just remember sitting in the kitchen for dinner—we always had dinner as a family—and it was [Caitlyn Jenner], my mom, and all the kids, and the phone rang, so I got up and answered it, and it was a call from jail,” Kim shared. “O. J. and my mom were just screaming at each other.”
Inside the Kardashian family’s divide over O.J. Simpson’s defense team
Kardashian said the trial marked the first time she noticed “this real divide” within her family. At her mother’s house, people would talk “such crazy shit” about O.J.’s defense team. At her father’s house, meanwhile, fellow defense attorneys Robert Shapiro and Johnnie Cochran would be “having strategy sessions.”
The reality star recalled, “The whole team, upstairs pacing around, and there’s evidence books and photos and whiteboards, and they were so serious.” She said she was “fascinated” by the entire situation, and admitted that she “wanted to help solve this.”
When the verdict of O.J.’s trial was delivered, Kim remembered being at Kris’ house, with the kids “screaming” and “jumping up and down” because Robert had won. She said that, looking back, she doesn’t think they were aware of “how big of a deal the whole thing was.” Kardashian confessed, “The only way we could know was from our parents’ reactions, their faces. And I’ll never forget, after the verdict, Kris and [Caitlyn] were so angry downstairs in the kitchen. I heard it all the way upstairs. I had never heard yelling like that before in their house.”
The O.J. Simpson trial left Kim with lasting memories of how the case strained relationships between the people closest to her.
