Diary entries from Nicole Brown Simpson’s secret journal, detailing the abuse she suffered at the hands of her ex-husband OJ Simpson, have been revealed in a new Lifetime documentary The Life and Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson.
The two-night special, which premieres on June 1, marks the 30th anniversary of Simpson’s murder at age 35. It features exclusive interviews with her three sisters and closest friends who “shed new light on her life and tragic death,” filmmakers said.
On June 12, 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson was stabbed to death alongside her friend Ron Goldman outside her Brentwood, California home. OJ was charged with the murders but acquitted by a jury at what became known as the “trial of the century.” OJ Simpson died from prostate cancer in April at the age of 76.
In the new documentary, Denise, Dominique and Tanya Brown open up about the relationship between Nicole and OJ.
Denise shares how she missed signs of abuse because they seemed “very loving toward each other.”
Nicole’s private diary told a different story about their relationship, one filled with verbal, emotional and physical abuse.
The first handwritten diary entry, shown in episode one, detailed a fight they had in the first year of their relationship, shortly after the death of OJ’s one-year-old daughter Aaren, whom he shared with his first wife Marguerite Simpson.
“Early in 1st year 1977 in San Franciso after his baby died I found an earring in my apt bed on Bedford,” she wrote. “I accused OJ of sleeping with someone named Teri. He threw fit, chased me, grabbed me threw me into walls. Threw all my clothes out of window onto street [from] 3rd floor. Bruised me, calmed him down.”
Later in the episode, Judie Manto, a longtime family friend of the Browns, recalled visiting the Simpsons at their Laguna beach house. She described the energy at the house as light and energetic, but then “[OJ] would just come and it would be like a black cloud all of a sudden.”
“Beach house – Hit me, threw me up against the walls. Threw my camera, it broke the paneling – moldings off the doors to master bdrm and garage door,” Nicole wrote in a second diary entry.
Finally, the episode recounted the time OJ got angry over a gay man kissing his and Nicole’s son, Justin. The family was, at the time, gathered at a restaurant in Hawaii for Christmas in 1988.
“There was a gay couple that was sitting at the table and they just thought Justin was beautiful,” Denise explained. “One of the guys, he kissed Justin on the forehead. And it was so sweet and so nice, and as soon as we walked out all hell broke loose.”
In a clip shown from the 1996 video deposition of OJ’s close friend, Marcus Allen, he told lawyers: “After Nicole had let the man hold the baby, she took the baby back, OJ supposedly had said, ‘Why did you have that gay guy hold my baby,’ or something like that and she says, ‘Why are you concerned about him being gay? Your father is gay.’ And OJ got very upset with her.”
OJ had a fraught relationship with his father, Jimmy Simpson, who had come out as gay later in life and died from AIDS in 1986 at age 66.
Nicole described the incident in her diary, writing: “Hawaii gay man kissed Justin. OJ threw me up against walls in our hotel and on the floor. Put bruises on my arms and back. The window scared me – thought he’d throw me out.”
Denise said the next day, Nicole wore a long-sleeved shirt despite the warm weather. “I knew he was pissed off, but I didn’t know anything else that happened behind closed doors,” she said. “I read in her diary afterwards that he had her up against the wall, over the balcony, doing the usual – hurting her.”
For the last three decades, the Brown sisters have been anti-domestic violence advocates, educating the public on signs of abuse as well as advising and supporting victims.
Speaking on Good Morning America ahead of the documentary’s release, Denise said that she hopes it will show people who Nicole was before her murder became the “trial of the century.”
The Life and Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson two-night event premieres on June 1 at 8p/7c on Lifetime.
