Kim Kardashian hasn’t been in contact with the late O.J. Simpson since before he was sentenced to prison in 2008 — years before making reference to the controversial athlete during her Saturday Night Live hosting gig in October 2021.
“I think the last time I saw him was in Miami. It was before he had gone to jail [for] this, you know, last situation,” Kim told close friend Jonathan “FoodGod” Cheban on his “FoodGod: OMFG” podcast in September 2019, nearly five years before Simpson died following a battle with prostate cancer at age 76 in April 2024. The conversation came up after Cheban recalled his own run-in with Simpson.
Simpson was charged with the murder of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman in 1994. He was acquitted of all charges in 1995 but later found guilty for wrongful death and battery in a civil suit. Years later, in 2007, he was arrested and subsequently found guilty for kidnapping and armed robbery — which is the incident Kim appeared to be referring to. (Simpson was sentenced to prison in 2008 and released on parole in December 2021.)
“I think me, Kourtney [Kardashian] and Khloé [Kardashian] were in Miami in a club and we ran into him in the VIP section,” Kim recalled. “It was behind a stage or something, I don’t even know what club it was at. I started crying. It was emotional, I think.”
O.J. Simpson originally rose to fame as a football standout. After winning the 1968 Heisman Trophy at the University of Southern California, he was selected by the Buffalo Bills as the No. 1 overall pick in the 1969 draft. Simpson retired from the NFL in 1979 after playing 11 seasons, pivoting his career to take […]
Kim went on to say that she doesn’t “really talk” about the Simpson trial. (Kim’s late father, Robert Kardashian, served as an attorney on Simpson’s legal team during his murder trial and was close friends with Simpson. Kim’s mom, Kris Jenner, was best friends with Brown Simpson.)
O.J. Simpson Isaac Brekken-Pool/Getty Images
Kim claimed at the time of the podcast that she’s “somewhat friendly” with Simpson’s kids. The former NFL star has five kids, Arnelle, Jason and Aaren, whom he shared with first wife Marguerite Whitley, and Sydney and Justin, whom he shared with Brown Simpson.
“Their lives must be extremely hard to really go through that,” Kim said. “So, I always just try to keep to myself on that issue and not bring anything up for them because, you know, every time someone does it’s super traumatic.”
MYUNG J. CHUN-/POOL/AFP via Getty Images NFL star O.J. Simpson was infamously acquitted of murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman following a high-profile trial in the ‘90s. The legal battle was one of the most notorious criminal trials in American history, and a defining moment of the 1990s. Brown Simpson […]
Kim seemed to walk back on those comments, however, when she hosted SNL in October 2021 and made a joke about Simpson during her monologue while discussing her late father. (Robert died at 59 after a battle with esophageal cancer.)
“It’s because of him that I met my first Black person,” she said. “Want to take a stab in the dark at who it was? I know it’s sort of weird to remember the first Black person you met, but O.J. [Simpson] does leave a mark. Or several. Or none at all, I still don’t know!”
Following the episode, Brown Simpson’s sister Tanya Brown hit back at the joke, telling TMZ she thought they were in “poor taste.”
