Kris Jenner: 'I Will Always Feel Guilty' About Nicole Brown Simpson's Death
Long before Kris Jenner was ever known as a reality star or a momager, she was close friends with the late Nicole Brown Simpson.
She and ex-husband Robert Kardashian — who famously worked as one of the lawyers defending the victim’s ex-husband O.J. Simpson, after he was accused of Nicole’s 1994 stabbing death — were friends with the Simpsons when both couples were still together. O.J. was even a groomsman at Kris and Robert’s wedding. As she revealed in her 2011 memoir, Kris Jenner…and all things Kardashian, the kids even called the couple Auntie Nicole and Uncle O.J., and Kris stayed close with the Simpsons after she divorced Robert and married Bruce Jenner in 1991. In fact, Kendall Jenner was given the middle name Nicole when she was born in 1995.
Related: Kris Jenner’s Cookbook Features Recipe From Late Friend Nicole Brown Simpson
Kris, who’s spoken about her friendship with Nicole in the past, is opening up on the subject again for a new documentary about the infamous case 20 years after former football star O.J. was controversially found “not guilty” in the deaths of Nicole and her friend Ron Goldman.
“At the end of Nicole’s life, I think she finally was at a place where she knew she had to be more vocal with what was going on and she was in trouble,” Kris said in an interview that will air as part of LMN’s documentary The Secret Tapes of the O.J. Case: The Untold Story. It will also appear as part of tonight’s episode of 20/20 on ABC. “The one thing she would tell all of us by the time, you know, it got to that level was, ‘He’s going to kill me and he’s going to get away with it.’”
She continued, “I will always feel guilty that I didn’t pay more attention and didn’t speak up when I thought anything was wrong or asked her more, 'Do you want to talk about it?’”
Related: Selma Blair Cast as Kris Jenner in American Crime Story: The People V OJ Simpson
Kris explained her reaction to hearing the recording of a phone call that Nicole made to police about Simpson months before she died in the courtroom during the infamous trial. On the tape, Nicole said O.J. is “going to beat the s— out of me.”
“Her voice, pleading for somebody to come to her house because she thought he was going to beat the s— out of her, you know, I think that, that was so shocking to me because I had never heard that before,” Jenner said.
As ABC News noted, the mother of Kim, Kourtney, Khloé, and Rob Kardashian, as well as Kendall and Kylie Jenner, revealed to them in 1995 that she spoke with O.J. from jail more than once. He repeatedly told her he wasn’t responsible for the murders.
By the time Robert Kardashian died of cancer in 2003, his relationship with O.J. had also fallen apart. “O.J. did try to reach out and call him,” Jenner said in the vintage interview, “but Robert didn’t take the call.”
The documentary premieres Sept. 30.