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Speaker 1: Amy Robach and TJ Holmes present Killer Thriller with your host, Alisa Donovan. Welcome back to Killer Thriller.
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Speaker 2: We are continuing our conversation with Denise Brown, sister of Nicole Brown Simpson and author of the new book on sale now, For My Sister Nicole, Love Shouldn't Hurt, What to Know About Domestic Violence. You discover that Nicole called a shelter just five days before she was murdered and How did you find that out? And can you talk about how turning to a shelter, essentially strangers, might seem more palatable than calling a supportive family?
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Speaker 3: I found out in court. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I found out in court that she had called a shelter because they called them up on the stand and they wouldn't talk. And I was really, really, really angry because I thought, How could you not tell them what my sister, what happened to my sister or what she said to you? And then I, once I started learning about it, I understood, but this took years to understand that they are there to protect the other victims that are our clients that they call them there that are in the shelter. Because if they start talking about Nicole per se, they have to open up and let their books be shown about everybody. And I never understood that. That's why I got so angry. And I just thought, oh, my God, they're awful. I would never call them.
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Speaker 1: Right, right, right.
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Speaker 3: But I understand it now. Yeah. But as a sister to someone that was murdered. Of course. I didn't understand it at all.
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Speaker 1: Of course.
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Speaker 2: One of the most disturbing scenes in your book is your account of seeing OJ put his hands around.
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Speaker 1: Nicole's throat and lift her. her off the ground. It's a lot to metabolize. What do you remember about that moment?
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Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, every detail, every single detail. That is something that is so ingrained in my brain that I cannot forget it. I mean, it was, it was, God, we had such a fun night. a fun night that we, you know, you go and you eat Mexican food and you're drinking to keep while you're drinking the margaritas and you're having a great time and everything's fun. Uh, we go back to Rockingham. He's making more margaritas and we're all sitting around the bar, having a great time. And then all of a sudden he says, Nicole, go get some food. I go, Oh my God. I said, we just ate. I said, what do you, what do we need more food for? Nicole, go get some more food. I'm so glad you see, I don't know why I can't keep my mouth shut. But anyhow, I said, why do you take her? You take my sister so for granted. She does everything for you. Okay. Denise had to open her mouth. Well, this is when he came around the bar. And I thought, what in the world is he doing? And I saw dark black eyes. I saw veins popping out of his head. I just thought, oh, my God. He ran up the stairs. started throwing pictures down into the foyer, not pictures of his family, pictures of our family. And he runs into the bedroom, takes her clothes, throws them into the foyer, shoes, jackets, hangers, everything. All of a sudden he comes running back down. He sees Nicole, he grabs her by the throat and he has her six inches off the ground. And I am sitting there watching this and he is just black eyes. And I am going over there and I'm pounding on him as hard as I can and crying and screaming. And finally, he released her. And he took her by the arms and he threw her outside and she was all bloody, her elbows. And she landed on her butt. And then he came, grabbed me, threw me out of the door. But I didn't fall down. And I just said, we're out of here. I grabbed Nicole and I took her. I took her out. And we spent the night at a hotel because a friend of ours that was with us, he ended up, he was at the Beverly Hills Hotel. So we ended up taking Nicole there. And the next day she said, Denise, I have to go back and get some clothes. I said, okay. I said, I'm going with you. And she said, no, she goes, don't even worry about it. She goes, he's not going to be there anyway. And I said, no, no, no, I'm going to go. And she said, she goes, Denise, I'll be gone like maximum two hours. You know, I'll go there, pick up some stuff, and I'll be back. I said, okay. And she goes, one hour, two hours, three hours. I finally get on the phone. Remember, we didn't have cell phones at the time. And I call the home phone. She picks up the phone. And she goes, oh, Denise. I said, Nicole. I said, what's up? And she goes, oh, everything's okay. Okay. I said, what do you mean everything's okay? And she says, oh, we talked and everything's okay. Things just got out of hand. We drank too much, whatever. Well, after that, I got to thinking, looking back in hindsight, not after the event, I looked back and I thought, oh, my God, I caused this. This was my fault. This was my fault for opening up my mouth and saying he took her for granted. And then I realized after I started learning about domestic violence, it's not my fault. It's not Nicole's fault. He is the asshole. Yes. He is the one that is, he's the batterer. He's the narcissist. He's the evil one. He is the monster.
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Speaker 1: It's so insidious.
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Speaker 2: And it's so important for people to understand this. You are both intelligent, well-rounded, strong women that have a great family.
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Speaker 1: And you could still start to think that, oh, I caused this.
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Speaker 2: It's so important for people to understand that.
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Speaker 3: It's nobody's fault except the monster that's inflicting this pain. That's right. That's the only person whose fault it is.
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Speaker 2: After the National Enquirer posted the photos of Nicole with the bruises and OJ still had no real repercussions, what did you think about that?
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Speaker 1: How did it feel to see no public.
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Speaker 2: Outcry for Nicole and only praise for OJ and sort of his new job?
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Speaker 1: It's kind of inconceivable today.
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Speaker 3: Well, today it would not happen. You got to remember this was 32 years ago. No longer than that. 32 years since she was murdered. It was before that. So you have to really look back and think, wow, there was no outcry then. Everybody put him up on a pedestal. He could do no wrong. And even when he made light of it, I guess in an interview or when he first, the first day of his new job as an analyst, he made light of it and said, ah, we just had a fight. You know, they blew it all out of proportion and everybody was like, okay with it. But see, this is where I sit there and I think, and this is so hard for me to say, because I truly believe that Nicole had no way out. I think that Nicole was put on this earth to be that base of domestic violence because, well, so many wonderful things happened after that. And he was so loved that nobody did anything. And how many times do they have to be, the police have to be called to the house in order for them to even do something. He even said it in his own words. Hey, you guys have been out here eight times and you've never done anything. This is the family matter, you know? And so I sit there and I just think, gosh, if people just wouldn't put people that can throw a ball, hit a ball, run, do all that stuff, put these people that they don't know up on a pedestal. Yes. Think that they do wonderful at the sport that they're doing. but don't put them up on a pedestal that they're above the law, that they are, you know, like these wonderful human beings. They may be good at throwing a ball or shooting a basket. It doesn't make them a good human being. No, it doesn't make them a good person. That's right. So that's the hardest thing for me to come to the realization, but knowing after Nicole's murder, that the Violence Against Women Act was signed into law three months after Nicole's murder. And then a year later, the 24-hour National Domestic Violence Hotline was put into place. The bill was signed into law by President Bill Clinton. The National Domestic Violence Hotline was done because of the Violence Against Women Act and funding that President Joe Biden, Senator, at the time did the violence against women act when i went to congress and i spoke out about it they increased the funding and this is something that i am truly proud of because they increased the funding from 18 million to 32 million dollars so that they could start funding programs.
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Speaker 1: That is incredible.
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Speaker 3: That was something that, yeah, I'll, I'm, yeah, that's something I'm very, very proud of.
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Speaker 2: You know, I talk about this a lot on this podcast about how, sorry.
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Speaker 3: No.
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Speaker 2: I don't know how, like, I don't know how you do this. I really don't know how you're doing this. because it's very hard for me to do this interview and I just don't know how I'm, I'm in awe of you is.
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Speaker 1: What I want to say.
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Speaker 3: Oh gosh, thank you.
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Speaker 2: You know, you say it feel like, no, Nicole was kind of, that became her, her legacy, like she was put on this earth to be the face of this. And I, you know, you also, you, this was not the plan for your life and you, you, chose to make this have meaning and to answer the call of your life, so to speak. And I just feel like that is, it's so admirable. It's so impressive. I just, I think like I'm very, very moved by that. So we all as a culture, thank you.
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Speaker 3: It is moving mountains to try to change policy.
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Speaker 2: Anybody that has in any way tried to do that understands that. So what you did is, is just phenomenal.
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Speaker 3: Well, I feel like Nicole's not here any longer. And ever since she was yay big, you know, I was always there protecting her in a baby carriage. My mother used to tell me stories, Hey, you would stand in between people and Nicole because you said, no, no, no, you can't touch her. So I always felt like I was there to protect her. And then when all of this happened, I felt the need to protect my family because there was so much ugly and so many ugly things were happening. And I felt the need to protect them too. And I don't know why I took on that role. And I just, it just kind of happened. But I felt like I had nothing to lose. I had already lost everything. I had lost my best friend. I lost my sister in the most horrific way. And I just think that, you know, going forward and moving forward was the least thing I could do to help her, to protect her. To protect her when they were talking such ugly stories about her. And I thought, you know, Denise, you have nothing to lose. It's like, get out there and protect your sister. Yeah. And so that's how the whole journey started. And, you know, I mean, when this whole thing started, I thought I was going to throw up the first time I had to speak. I was not a speaker. So, you know, over the years, I have grown. And I did realize that, hey, this is not a grade for me. This is for Nicole. And now it's for everyone else out there that needs help. Right.
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Speaker 2: Another very, very moving part of the book that after Nicole died, your family discovered the writings in which she had documented abuse that you knew nothing about. And there's just a devastating scene where your father is reading Nicole's journals. And what do you remember about watching him realize what his daughter had been living through while at the same time you're handling your own grief?
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Speaker 3: When I, he called me back to his bedroom and he said, Denise, he goes, take a look at this. And I started looking and I started reading and I said, Oh my God. I said, we were there. We were there.
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Speaker 1: Oh my God.
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Speaker 3: Why didn't she tell us? And then I just took them and I threw them down on the bed and I left the room and I came back and my dad was still reading the diaries. And I thought, Oh, I was like, oh my gosh. And I just saw him.
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Speaker 4: It kind of reminded me of when I was up on the stand and I was being asked questions and I saw my dad crying in the courtroom. And this reminded me so of that because he was like, I don't know. I mean, it was just like, he was just looked so defeated and just looked so rushed and not understanding what the hell he was reading and why all of this stuff was happening.
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Speaker 3: And that was before we started understanding what that why question was. Right. Right.
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Speaker 2: You know, it's, it's very upsetting to see a parent, upset. You know, it's like the ultimate feeling of helplessness, I think.
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Speaker 3: It is, you know, it really truly is.
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Speaker 2: So you, you remember telling Nicole that she needed to get away from OJ and Nicole telling you that she didn't want to ruin his career or his reputation and saying things like, I can't do that to my children. How much did protecting her children keep her in that relationship?
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Speaker 3: Do you think? I think a lot because Nicole always wanted the white picket fence. She always wanted a family and she had two kids. She had a husband. She wanted to make it work. She always wanted that. So I think it meant a lot to her to tell me, hey, Denise, she goes, I am not going to ruin his career. I'm not going to ruin his life. He is the father of my children. And I'm like, well, you don't have to ruin his career or his life leaving him. But she felt that that's exactly what it would be. It would be ruining his life. Or now looking back, maybe she felt like he would take custody of the children or threaten to hurt the family or because a lot of abusers do things like that, right? So what was going on in her mind when she said that? I took her for her word, but there could have been so many things in the back of her mind, you know, because a victim is the only one that knows how really horrific things as horrible and evil an abuser can be. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: I think about that, the amount of.
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Speaker 2: It just has to be so all-encompassing and the things that she's constantly having to do, aside from the basics of life, of taking care of her children and herself and things, that constant having to protect herself, having to create a reality that is different than what it really is, and that fear... It's just it has to be exhausting beyond comprehension.
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Speaker 1: Yeah.
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Speaker 3: And, you know, when you look at her, you would have never known. Right. She hit it so well. And she was just a beautiful woman. She was she was a beautiful girl. She was a beautiful baby. I mean, she was she just radiated beauty. And she was one that could get herself together. She could be gardening in the backyard and all dirty or playing with the kids. And half hour later, she'd be ready for a black tie event. Right. I mean, she was really a remarkable woman. And so it's just so sad for me. It's so sad. You know, I just wish that she could have just seen how her kids grew up, how, you know, like seeing them graduate, see them, you know, experience life, be there for them. I mean, she missed so much. She missed graduation. She missed, she missed everything, you know? I mean, she just missed their whole life. They were babies.
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Speaker 4: Yeah.
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Speaker 2: Um, On New Year's Day in 1989, Nicole called the police after OJ assaulted her, and he ultimately pleaded no contest to spousal battery.
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Speaker 1: Do you see that.
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Speaker 2: As a moment when authorities had a real opportunity to intervene?
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Speaker 3: I don't know if we had lots back then. What kind of laws did we have besides a law enforcement officer coming over to the house and saying, take a walk around the block and cool off? Those were the laws back then.
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Speaker 1: This is like the equipment.
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Speaker 2: Of write an essay after you've brutally gang raped a woman don't even get me started.
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Speaker 3: Don't even get me started no that yeah exactly and you know for him to plead no contest and get a slap on the wrist Use whatever kind of therapist he wants to. Call them twice. I can't believe somebody had mentioned something about a year of counseling. Yeah, I don't think so. I don't think so. I honestly don't believe it. I heard that there was two times he called them and it was a therapist of his choosing. And, you know, I just think that, well, can I just tell you one thing that I'm really, really excited about? Yes. Okay, talking about restraining orders. And there is a Carrie's Law in Connecticut. A woman contacted me. And what they are trying to do now, and they're getting some traction, is getting a law passed for GPS, an ankle monitor for perpetrators, instead of just that piece of paper of a restraining order. actually monitor their every move. Now, how great would that be?
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Speaker 2: Great.
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Speaker 3: Yeah. Because then, okay, the restraining order says you have to stay 100 yards away.
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Speaker 2: It will reveal stalking. It will prevent stalking.
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Speaker 3: Right. And it'll prevent murders because oftentimes that little piece of paper, they could still be hiding behind your closet if they get in your door. And that's how a lot of laws initially have changed. But why do we have to have a murder before something is actually really done? So I think the GPS, the ankle monitors, if you're convicted of domestic violence and you need a restraining order, even for a week, two weeks before you go to trial, stick that ankle monitor on that perpetrator and just so that you could make sure that this woman stays alive. Yes. I love it. And this is happening in Connecticut. So I am backing that. I am thrilled about that. I think it's absolutely wonderful.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, me too.
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Speaker 2: Going back to 89, after that attack, Nicole asked you to photograph her injuries because she wanted to keep a record. And those photos were later found in her safe deposit box. And you talk about Nicole's planning while minimizing, which I think is such a great term by having you take these photos of her bruises, but saying she'd take them to, you know, the discreet photo lab and not really, they're not that big of a deal. So can you talk about that dichotomy with victims?
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Speaker 3: Well, with Nicole, when she asked me to take those pictures, I said, well, what are you going to do with them? She said, I don't know. She didn't know what she was doing with them. She just wanted to have them. What was going on in the back of her head with that? I don't exactly know. But I do know that when she went to the police station, they took the pictures of her with her sweatpants on and they were all muddy. That one they took there. So all the pictures, did she take them to the police station? Did they take their own pictures of Nicole that looked like the ones that I took? I don't know. But I do know that they were leaked and that they were going to be released to the National Enquirer. Because she called me and she said, Denise, I have to get out of town. Will you go with me? And I said, what do you mean you have to get out of town? She said, the National Enquirer has got some pictures of me and I don't want to be here when they're released. And so I said, oh my God. And you know, you sit there and you think, the National Enquirer and all those kind of tabloid magazines. It's like, wow, my sister is going to be on that or in that magazine. Because back in the day, I mean, it was just, well, you didn't want to be in the National Enquirer that way. And so anyway, so she said, will you go with me to Cabo? Let's go. Let's just grab the kids and go. And so we did. And we went down to Cabo. And that's where she told me. Yeah, when we got there, I said, okay, we had a conversation. She says, no, I'm not going to ruin his life. I'm not going to do that. I don't want to ruin his career. I don't want to ruin his life. I don't want to, you know, I just don't want to do that. And I heard that probably about six, seven, eight, nine, 10 times. And finally, I just said, you know what? I'm going to let it go. And then it was, we had a fun time. We had such a great time down there. The old Nicole came back. And it was horseback riding. We went to the beach. We did everything with the kids and it was really, really a wonderful time. And then she told me, she says, well, maybe we'll stay down here a little bit longer. And because I do not want to go back and have, you know, Oh God, Nicole, I'm so sorry. I, she didn't want the, the people and friends calling her and saying, Oh, I'm so sorry. Boo hoo. You know, all that kind of stuff. I'm sorry this happened to you. So, yeah. And it, It kind of makes me think about what Ron Hardy said. Ron Hardy was a good friend of Nicole's. And he was in the Life and Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson, the documentary that us sisters did. And I asked him when he got done filming, I said, Ron, I said, did Nicole ever share any abuse with you? And he said, no. And I said, he says, you know what? I think the reason she didn't say anything was to protect her family and her friends. And that I understood. That made sense to me. Because then you sit there and you think of all the things, like I was telling you earlier, threatening to kill the family, threatening to take the kids away from you, threatening, threatening, threatening all the different things that they can come up with. And you're the only one that actually knows how bad the person can be.
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Speaker 1: In listening to the 911 calls.
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Speaker 3: I've never heard it.
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Speaker 1: You haven't?
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Speaker 2: So that's what I was going to ask you. I watched last night the courtroom piece of that, where they play the one from 93 in its entirety. And what is so unbelievable to me is that it's 15 minutes long.
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Speaker 3: Oh, my gosh. I didn't even know that.
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Speaker 2: Several things are striking to me. First of all, what was most upsetting to me, it's obviously upsetting because you hear her in terror and you hear him just screaming and cursing and yelling and upset.
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Speaker 1: It's just outrageous. But in the.
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Speaker 2: Courtroom, this is going to make me cry too, his attorneys sitting there, the one Couldn't even look at him. So it was Robert Shapiro, Johnny Cochran and the other Douglas.
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Speaker 3: Yes.
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Speaker 2: And he couldn't even look at OJ. And I was like, how can you defend this person? You can't even look at him. It was so appalling. Johnny Cochran sort of like chatting with him and, you know, uh, trying to sort of distract and make it seem like nothing's happening. And Robert Shapiro is in the back and he's just sort of staring at into space.
00:28:03
Speaker 1: Like, how did I get here?
00:28:06
Speaker 2: And this thing, I just think I cannot understand how this man was not convicted. I just cannot understand it.
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Speaker 3: Well, I learned a lot from that whole thing because the trial one should have been held in Santa Monica. Yes. The, you know, the murders happened there too. There were the riots, Los Angeles riots downtown, Reginald Denny and the other one. So then my father, after the trial, he got a phone call from one of the jurors and the juror told him, Mr. Brown, I need to tell you, or I'm not sure when it was. I don't remember offhand now, but he got a phone call and he said, I just want to let you know that I heard the jurors after we were sequestered, I heard the jurors saying that now it's payback time. She went up to judge Edo and said, told them exactly what she heard. And he, judge Edo let her go. Not the person that said it's payback time.
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Speaker 1: He excused her.
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Speaker 3: He excused the woman that went up and said this after they were sequestered. So I have learned so much after all of, you know, about the trials and about, you know, the rights that we had that I didn't know that we had, you know, victim services was there with us, and they were wonderful. But I didn't know that, hey, we have the right to ask all kinds of questions. And why did you do this? And why didn't you do this? And, you know, to I just, we really thought we were in good hands, that people were, we'd never been through this before. We had never been to court before. So you always want to believe that these people that are representing your sister or you in court for that matter, or anybody that they're doing this for you in your best interest. Well, I learned that it's not all about that. It's about winning a case and they'll do whatever they possibly can to win a case. And that was the defense. And, you know, I even write in the book when he tried on the glove. Hello. He was not sworn in. Judge Edo should have never allowed it. He made a mockery of the whole court system by doing this, because unless you're sworn in, you're not allowed to do that. Unless you're up on the stand, you're sworn in. This is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I had to do that when I went up on the stand. But no, he could just show off and just do whatever he had to do. Disgusting, disgusting, disgusting. So I can say that it's not the best thing that I have ever done in my whole entire life or remember in my whole entire life or experienced in my whole entire life because they made a mockery out of our judicial system.
00:31:19
Speaker 1: I couldn't agree more.
00:31:21
Speaker 2: And it was such a specific moment in Los Angeles. There were so many things. I moved to LA. I'm not going to make this about me. I'll tell you this offline. But I'm fiercely aware of that moment and how specific it was and all the things at play, that the DA needed a win, that people were rightfully so outraged about the racism that was going on. And it was like the perfect storm to turn it into that when it really had nothing to do with that.
00:31:56
Speaker 3: Nothing to do with it, no.
00:31:57
Speaker 1: Well, I have one more question. One more question.
00:31:59
Speaker 2: So you've spent 30 years talking about the worst thing that ever happened to your family. And was there anything about writing this book that you still weren't prepared to confront?
00:32:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, probably the afterword that I told you about coming to that realization that Nicole was that face of domestic violence. That she was put on this earth for that. And that... That was a hard realization for me. And every time I think about it, it's a hard realization. It's just like, why her? Why Nicole? When this was happening to so many people before. It's like, why did it take Nicole? Well, I know why it took Nicole. Because people used to think it happened to poor and homeless people. Nicole wasn't poor. She wasn't homeless. She was a beautiful woman with so much life and so much to do ahead of her. So why her? Why didn't people take it seriously before? You know, I still have a thousand why questions. I'll tell you. I don't think my why questions will ever end or ever be answered because she's one not here to answer them. And I don't think anybody has an answer for that. Yeah. Why Nicole? Yeah. Oh, Denise.
00:33:22
Speaker 2: So the book is called For My Sister Nicole, Love Shouldn't Hurt, What to Know About Domestic Violence. Denise, I can't thank you enough for this conversation. I am in awe of you. Again, I'm just profoundly sorry that you even have to do this. But I'm grateful for all of the work you're doing, as are all of the women in this country.
00:33:46
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. Thank you. Well, thank you. It's been a pleasure and it was really great meeting you.
00:33:53
Speaker 1: You too.
00:33:53
Speaker 2: Everyone buy this book and read it. It's beautiful and it's important. Thank you so much, Denise.
00:33:59
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Amy Robach and TJ Holmes present Killer Thriller with your host, Alisa Donovan. Welcome back to Killer Thriller.
00:00:17
Speaker 2: We are continuing our conversation with Denise Brown, sister of Nicole Brown Simpson and author of the new book on sale now, For My Sister Nicole, Love Shouldn't Hurt, What to Know About Domestic Violence. You discover that Nicole called a shelter just five days before she was murdered and How did you find that out? And can you talk about how turning to a shelter, essentially strangers, might seem more palatable than calling a supportive family?
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Speaker 3: I found out in court. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. I found out in court that she had called a shelter because they called them up on the stand and they wouldn't talk. And I was really, really, really angry because I thought, How could you not tell them what my sister, what happened to my sister or what she said to you? And then I, once I started learning about it, I understood, but this took years to understand that they are there to protect the other victims that are our clients that they call them there that are in the shelter. Because if they start talking about Nicole per se, they have to open up and let their books be shown about everybody. And I never understood that. That's why I got so angry. And I just thought, oh, my God, they're awful. I would never call them.
00:01:42
Speaker 1: Right, right, right.
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Speaker 3: But I understand it now. Yeah. But as a sister to someone that was murdered. Of course. I didn't understand it at all.
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Speaker 1: Of course.
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Speaker 2: One of the most disturbing scenes in your book is your account of seeing OJ put his hands around.
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Speaker 1: Nicole's throat and lift her. her off the ground. It's a lot to metabolize. What do you remember about that moment?
00:02:12
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh, every detail, every single detail. That is something that is so ingrained in my brain that I cannot forget it. I mean, it was, it was, God, we had such a fun night. a fun night that we, you know, you go and you eat Mexican food and you're drinking to keep while you're drinking the margaritas and you're having a great time and everything's fun. Uh, we go back to Rockingham. He's making more margaritas and we're all sitting around the bar, having a great time. And then all of a sudden he says, Nicole, go get some food. I go, Oh my God. I said, we just ate. I said, what do you, what do we need more food for? Nicole, go get some more food. I'm so glad you see, I don't know why I can't keep my mouth shut. But anyhow, I said, why do you take her? You take my sister so for granted. She does everything for you. Okay. Denise had to open her mouth. Well, this is when he came around the bar. And I thought, what in the world is he doing? And I saw dark black eyes. I saw veins popping out of his head. I just thought, oh, my God. He ran up the stairs. started throwing pictures down into the foyer, not pictures of his family, pictures of our family. And he runs into the bedroom, takes her clothes, throws them into the foyer, shoes, jackets, hangers, everything. All of a sudden he comes running back down. He sees Nicole, he grabs her by the throat and he has her six inches off the ground. And I am sitting there watching this and he is just black eyes. And I am going over there and I'm pounding on him as hard as I can and crying and screaming. And finally, he released her. And he took her by the arms and he threw her outside and she was all bloody, her elbows. And she landed on her butt. And then he came, grabbed me, threw me out of the door. But I didn't fall down. And I just said, we're out of here. I grabbed Nicole and I took her. I took her out. And we spent the night at a hotel because a friend of ours that was with us, he ended up, he was at the Beverly Hills Hotel. So we ended up taking Nicole there. And the next day she said, Denise, I have to go back and get some clothes. I said, okay. I said, I'm going with you. And she said, no, she goes, don't even worry about it. She goes, he's not going to be there anyway. And I said, no, no, no, I'm going to go. And she said, she goes, Denise, I'll be gone like maximum two hours. You know, I'll go there, pick up some stuff, and I'll be back. I said, okay. And she goes, one hour, two hours, three hours. I finally get on the phone. Remember, we didn't have cell phones at the time. And I call the home phone. She picks up the phone. And she goes, oh, Denise. I said, Nicole. I said, what's up? And she goes, oh, everything's okay. Okay. I said, what do you mean everything's okay? And she says, oh, we talked and everything's okay. Things just got out of hand. We drank too much, whatever. Well, after that, I got to thinking, looking back in hindsight, not after the event, I looked back and I thought, oh, my God, I caused this. This was my fault. This was my fault for opening up my mouth and saying he took her for granted. And then I realized after I started learning about domestic violence, it's not my fault. It's not Nicole's fault. He is the asshole. Yes. He is the one that is, he's the batterer. He's the narcissist. He's the evil one. He is the monster.
00:06:17
Speaker 1: It's so insidious.
00:06:19
Speaker 2: And it's so important for people to understand this. You are both intelligent, well-rounded, strong women that have a great family.
00:06:30
Speaker 1: And you could still start to think that, oh, I caused this.
00:06:37
Speaker 2: It's so important for people to understand that.
00:06:42
Speaker 3: It's nobody's fault except the monster that's inflicting this pain. That's right. That's the only person whose fault it is.
00:06:51
Speaker 2: After the National Enquirer posted the photos of Nicole with the bruises and OJ still had no real repercussions, what did you think about that?
00:07:03
Speaker 1: How did it feel to see no public.
00:07:06
Speaker 2: Outcry for Nicole and only praise for OJ and sort of his new job?
00:07:11
Speaker 1: It's kind of inconceivable today.
00:07:14
Speaker 3: Well, today it would not happen. You got to remember this was 32 years ago. No longer than that. 32 years since she was murdered. It was before that. So you have to really look back and think, wow, there was no outcry then. Everybody put him up on a pedestal. He could do no wrong. And even when he made light of it, I guess in an interview or when he first, the first day of his new job as an analyst, he made light of it and said, ah, we just had a fight. You know, they blew it all out of proportion and everybody was like, okay with it. But see, this is where I sit there and I think, and this is so hard for me to say, because I truly believe that Nicole had no way out. I think that Nicole was put on this earth to be that base of domestic violence because, well, so many wonderful things happened after that. And he was so loved that nobody did anything. And how many times do they have to be, the police have to be called to the house in order for them to even do something. He even said it in his own words. Hey, you guys have been out here eight times and you've never done anything. This is the family matter, you know? And so I sit there and I just think, gosh, if people just wouldn't put people that can throw a ball, hit a ball, run, do all that stuff, put these people that they don't know up on a pedestal. Yes. Think that they do wonderful at the sport that they're doing. but don't put them up on a pedestal that they're above the law, that they are, you know, like these wonderful human beings. They may be good at throwing a ball or shooting a basket. It doesn't make them a good human being. No, it doesn't make them a good person. That's right. So that's the hardest thing for me to come to the realization, but knowing after Nicole's murder, that the Violence Against Women Act was signed into law three months after Nicole's murder. And then a year later, the 24-hour National Domestic Violence Hotline was put into place. The bill was signed into law by President Bill Clinton. The National Domestic Violence Hotline was done because of the Violence Against Women Act and funding that President Joe Biden, Senator, at the time did the violence against women act when i went to congress and i spoke out about it they increased the funding and this is something that i am truly proud of because they increased the funding from 18 million to 32 million dollars so that they could start funding programs.
00:10:19
Speaker 1: That is incredible.
00:10:22
Speaker 3: That was something that, yeah, I'll, I'm, yeah, that's something I'm very, very proud of.
00:10:29
Speaker 2: You know, I talk about this a lot on this podcast about how, sorry.
00:10:37
Speaker 3: No.
00:10:38
Speaker 2: I don't know how, like, I don't know how you do this. I really don't know how you're doing this. because it's very hard for me to do this interview and I just don't know how I'm, I'm in awe of you is.
00:10:49
Speaker 1: What I want to say.
00:10:50
Speaker 3: Oh gosh, thank you.
00:10:54
Speaker 2: You know, you say it feel like, no, Nicole was kind of, that became her, her legacy, like she was put on this earth to be the face of this. And I, you know, you also, you, this was not the plan for your life and you, you, chose to make this have meaning and to answer the call of your life, so to speak. And I just feel like that is, it's so admirable. It's so impressive. I just, I think like I'm very, very moved by that. So we all as a culture, thank you.
00:11:36
Speaker 3: It is moving mountains to try to change policy.
00:11:41
Speaker 2: Anybody that has in any way tried to do that understands that. So what you did is, is just phenomenal.
00:11:52
Speaker 3: Well, I feel like Nicole's not here any longer. And ever since she was yay big, you know, I was always there protecting her in a baby carriage. My mother used to tell me stories, Hey, you would stand in between people and Nicole because you said, no, no, no, you can't touch her. So I always felt like I was there to protect her. And then when all of this happened, I felt the need to protect my family because there was so much ugly and so many ugly things were happening. And I felt the need to protect them too. And I don't know why I took on that role. And I just, it just kind of happened. But I felt like I had nothing to lose. I had already lost everything. I had lost my best friend. I lost my sister in the most horrific way. And I just think that, you know, going forward and moving forward was the least thing I could do to help her, to protect her. To protect her when they were talking such ugly stories about her. And I thought, you know, Denise, you have nothing to lose. It's like, get out there and protect your sister. Yeah. And so that's how the whole journey started. And, you know, I mean, when this whole thing started, I thought I was going to throw up the first time I had to speak. I was not a speaker. So, you know, over the years, I have grown. And I did realize that, hey, this is not a grade for me. This is for Nicole. And now it's for everyone else out there that needs help. Right.
00:13:47
Speaker 2: Another very, very moving part of the book that after Nicole died, your family discovered the writings in which she had documented abuse that you knew nothing about. And there's just a devastating scene where your father is reading Nicole's journals. And what do you remember about watching him realize what his daughter had been living through while at the same time you're handling your own grief?
00:14:14
Speaker 3: When I, he called me back to his bedroom and he said, Denise, he goes, take a look at this. And I started looking and I started reading and I said, Oh my God. I said, we were there. We were there.
00:14:26
Speaker 1: Oh my God.
00:14:28
Speaker 3: Why didn't she tell us? And then I just took them and I threw them down on the bed and I left the room and I came back and my dad was still reading the diaries. And I thought, Oh, I was like, oh my gosh. And I just saw him.
00:14:47
Speaker 4: It kind of reminded me of when I was up on the stand and I was being asked questions and I saw my dad crying in the courtroom. And this reminded me so of that because he was like, I don't know. I mean, it was just like, he was just looked so defeated and just looked so rushed and not understanding what the hell he was reading and why all of this stuff was happening.
00:15:25
Speaker 3: And that was before we started understanding what that why question was. Right. Right.
00:15:32
Speaker 2: You know, it's, it's very upsetting to see a parent, upset. You know, it's like the ultimate feeling of helplessness, I think.
00:15:42
Speaker 3: It is, you know, it really truly is.
00:15:59
Speaker 2: So you, you remember telling Nicole that she needed to get away from OJ and Nicole telling you that she didn't want to ruin his career or his reputation and saying things like, I can't do that to my children. How much did protecting her children keep her in that relationship?
00:16:17
Speaker 3: Do you think? I think a lot because Nicole always wanted the white picket fence. She always wanted a family and she had two kids. She had a husband. She wanted to make it work. She always wanted that. So I think it meant a lot to her to tell me, hey, Denise, she goes, I am not going to ruin his career. I'm not going to ruin his life. He is the father of my children. And I'm like, well, you don't have to ruin his career or his life leaving him. But she felt that that's exactly what it would be. It would be ruining his life. Or now looking back, maybe she felt like he would take custody of the children or threaten to hurt the family or because a lot of abusers do things like that, right? So what was going on in her mind when she said that? I took her for her word, but there could have been so many things in the back of her mind, you know, because a victim is the only one that knows how really horrific things as horrible and evil an abuser can be. Yeah.
00:17:34
Speaker 1: I think about that, the amount of.
00:17:38
Speaker 2: It just has to be so all-encompassing and the things that she's constantly having to do, aside from the basics of life, of taking care of her children and herself and things, that constant having to protect herself, having to create a reality that is different than what it really is, and that fear... It's just it has to be exhausting beyond comprehension.
00:18:02
Speaker 1: Yeah.
00:18:03
Speaker 3: And, you know, when you look at her, you would have never known. Right. She hit it so well. And she was just a beautiful woman. She was she was a beautiful girl. She was a beautiful baby. I mean, she was she just radiated beauty. And she was one that could get herself together. She could be gardening in the backyard and all dirty or playing with the kids. And half hour later, she'd be ready for a black tie event. Right. I mean, she was really a remarkable woman. And so it's just so sad for me. It's so sad. You know, I just wish that she could have just seen how her kids grew up, how, you know, like seeing them graduate, see them, you know, experience life, be there for them. I mean, she missed so much. She missed graduation. She missed, she missed everything, you know? I mean, she just missed their whole life. They were babies.
00:19:13
Speaker 4: Yeah.
00:19:15
Speaker 2: Um, On New Year's Day in 1989, Nicole called the police after OJ assaulted her, and he ultimately pleaded no contest to spousal battery.
00:19:30
Speaker 1: Do you see that.
00:19:31
Speaker 2: As a moment when authorities had a real opportunity to intervene?
00:19:35
Speaker 3: I don't know if we had lots back then. What kind of laws did we have besides a law enforcement officer coming over to the house and saying, take a walk around the block and cool off? Those were the laws back then.
00:19:49
Speaker 1: This is like the equipment.
00:19:50
Speaker 2: Of write an essay after you've brutally gang raped a woman don't even get me started.
00:19:56
Speaker 3: Don't even get me started no that yeah exactly and you know for him to plead no contest and get a slap on the wrist Use whatever kind of therapist he wants to. Call them twice. I can't believe somebody had mentioned something about a year of counseling. Yeah, I don't think so. I don't think so. I honestly don't believe it. I heard that there was two times he called them and it was a therapist of his choosing. And, you know, I just think that, well, can I just tell you one thing that I'm really, really excited about? Yes. Okay, talking about restraining orders. And there is a Carrie's Law in Connecticut. A woman contacted me. And what they are trying to do now, and they're getting some traction, is getting a law passed for GPS, an ankle monitor for perpetrators, instead of just that piece of paper of a restraining order. actually monitor their every move. Now, how great would that be?
00:21:14
Speaker 2: Great.
00:21:15
Speaker 3: Yeah. Because then, okay, the restraining order says you have to stay 100 yards away.
00:21:20
Speaker 2: It will reveal stalking. It will prevent stalking.
00:21:24
Speaker 3: Right. And it'll prevent murders because oftentimes that little piece of paper, they could still be hiding behind your closet if they get in your door. And that's how a lot of laws initially have changed. But why do we have to have a murder before something is actually really done? So I think the GPS, the ankle monitors, if you're convicted of domestic violence and you need a restraining order, even for a week, two weeks before you go to trial, stick that ankle monitor on that perpetrator and just so that you could make sure that this woman stays alive. Yes. I love it. And this is happening in Connecticut. So I am backing that. I am thrilled about that. I think it's absolutely wonderful.
00:22:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, me too.
00:22:20
Speaker 2: Going back to 89, after that attack, Nicole asked you to photograph her injuries because she wanted to keep a record. And those photos were later found in her safe deposit box. And you talk about Nicole's planning while minimizing, which I think is such a great term by having you take these photos of her bruises, but saying she'd take them to, you know, the discreet photo lab and not really, they're not that big of a deal. So can you talk about that dichotomy with victims?
00:22:53
Speaker 3: Well, with Nicole, when she asked me to take those pictures, I said, well, what are you going to do with them? She said, I don't know. She didn't know what she was doing with them. She just wanted to have them. What was going on in the back of her head with that? I don't exactly know. But I do know that when she went to the police station, they took the pictures of her with her sweatpants on and they were all muddy. That one they took there. So all the pictures, did she take them to the police station? Did they take their own pictures of Nicole that looked like the ones that I took? I don't know. But I do know that they were leaked and that they were going to be released to the National Enquirer. Because she called me and she said, Denise, I have to get out of town. Will you go with me? And I said, what do you mean you have to get out of town? She said, the National Enquirer has got some pictures of me and I don't want to be here when they're released. And so I said, oh my God. And you know, you sit there and you think, the National Enquirer and all those kind of tabloid magazines. It's like, wow, my sister is going to be on that or in that magazine. Because back in the day, I mean, it was just, well, you didn't want to be in the National Enquirer that way. And so anyway, so she said, will you go with me to Cabo? Let's go. Let's just grab the kids and go. And so we did. And we went down to Cabo. And that's where she told me. Yeah, when we got there, I said, okay, we had a conversation. She says, no, I'm not going to ruin his life. I'm not going to do that. I don't want to ruin his career. I don't want to ruin his life. I don't want to, you know, I just don't want to do that. And I heard that probably about six, seven, eight, nine, 10 times. And finally, I just said, you know what? I'm going to let it go. And then it was, we had a fun time. We had such a great time down there. The old Nicole came back. And it was horseback riding. We went to the beach. We did everything with the kids and it was really, really a wonderful time. And then she told me, she says, well, maybe we'll stay down here a little bit longer. And because I do not want to go back and have, you know, Oh God, Nicole, I'm so sorry. I, she didn't want the, the people and friends calling her and saying, Oh, I'm so sorry. Boo hoo. You know, all that kind of stuff. I'm sorry this happened to you. So, yeah. And it, It kind of makes me think about what Ron Hardy said. Ron Hardy was a good friend of Nicole's. And he was in the Life and Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson, the documentary that us sisters did. And I asked him when he got done filming, I said, Ron, I said, did Nicole ever share any abuse with you? And he said, no. And I said, he says, you know what? I think the reason she didn't say anything was to protect her family and her friends. And that I understood. That made sense to me. Because then you sit there and you think of all the things, like I was telling you earlier, threatening to kill the family, threatening to take the kids away from you, threatening, threatening, threatening all the different things that they can come up with. And you're the only one that actually knows how bad the person can be.
00:26:36
Speaker 1: In listening to the 911 calls.
00:26:39
Speaker 3: I've never heard it.
00:26:40
Speaker 1: You haven't?
00:26:41
Speaker 2: So that's what I was going to ask you. I watched last night the courtroom piece of that, where they play the one from 93 in its entirety. And what is so unbelievable to me is that it's 15 minutes long.
00:27:02
Speaker 3: Oh, my gosh. I didn't even know that.
00:27:07
Speaker 2: Several things are striking to me. First of all, what was most upsetting to me, it's obviously upsetting because you hear her in terror and you hear him just screaming and cursing and yelling and upset.
00:27:22
Speaker 1: It's just outrageous. But in the.
00:27:25
Speaker 2: Courtroom, this is going to make me cry too, his attorneys sitting there, the one Couldn't even look at him. So it was Robert Shapiro, Johnny Cochran and the other Douglas.
00:27:40
Speaker 3: Yes.
00:27:41
Speaker 2: And he couldn't even look at OJ. And I was like, how can you defend this person? You can't even look at him. It was so appalling. Johnny Cochran sort of like chatting with him and, you know, uh, trying to sort of distract and make it seem like nothing's happening. And Robert Shapiro is in the back and he's just sort of staring at into space.
00:28:03
Speaker 1: Like, how did I get here?
00:28:06
Speaker 2: And this thing, I just think I cannot understand how this man was not convicted. I just cannot understand it.
00:28:18
Speaker 3: Well, I learned a lot from that whole thing because the trial one should have been held in Santa Monica. Yes. The, you know, the murders happened there too. There were the riots, Los Angeles riots downtown, Reginald Denny and the other one. So then my father, after the trial, he got a phone call from one of the jurors and the juror told him, Mr. Brown, I need to tell you, or I'm not sure when it was. I don't remember offhand now, but he got a phone call and he said, I just want to let you know that I heard the jurors after we were sequestered, I heard the jurors saying that now it's payback time. She went up to judge Edo and said, told them exactly what she heard. And he, judge Edo let her go. Not the person that said it's payback time.
00:29:27
Speaker 1: He excused her.
00:29:28
Speaker 3: He excused the woman that went up and said this after they were sequestered. So I have learned so much after all of, you know, about the trials and about, you know, the rights that we had that I didn't know that we had, you know, victim services was there with us, and they were wonderful. But I didn't know that, hey, we have the right to ask all kinds of questions. And why did you do this? And why didn't you do this? And, you know, to I just, we really thought we were in good hands, that people were, we'd never been through this before. We had never been to court before. So you always want to believe that these people that are representing your sister or you in court for that matter, or anybody that they're doing this for you in your best interest. Well, I learned that it's not all about that. It's about winning a case and they'll do whatever they possibly can to win a case. And that was the defense. And, you know, I even write in the book when he tried on the glove. Hello. He was not sworn in. Judge Edo should have never allowed it. He made a mockery of the whole court system by doing this, because unless you're sworn in, you're not allowed to do that. Unless you're up on the stand, you're sworn in. This is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. I had to do that when I went up on the stand. But no, he could just show off and just do whatever he had to do. Disgusting, disgusting, disgusting. So I can say that it's not the best thing that I have ever done in my whole entire life or remember in my whole entire life or experienced in my whole entire life because they made a mockery out of our judicial system.
00:31:19
Speaker 1: I couldn't agree more.
00:31:21
Speaker 2: And it was such a specific moment in Los Angeles. There were so many things. I moved to LA. I'm not going to make this about me. I'll tell you this offline. But I'm fiercely aware of that moment and how specific it was and all the things at play, that the DA needed a win, that people were rightfully so outraged about the racism that was going on. And it was like the perfect storm to turn it into that when it really had nothing to do with that.
00:31:56
Speaker 3: Nothing to do with it, no.
00:31:57
Speaker 1: Well, I have one more question. One more question.
00:31:59
Speaker 2: So you've spent 30 years talking about the worst thing that ever happened to your family. And was there anything about writing this book that you still weren't prepared to confront?
00:32:14
Speaker 3: Yeah, probably the afterword that I told you about coming to that realization that Nicole was that face of domestic violence. That she was put on this earth for that. And that... That was a hard realization for me. And every time I think about it, it's a hard realization. It's just like, why her? Why Nicole? When this was happening to so many people before. It's like, why did it take Nicole? Well, I know why it took Nicole. Because people used to think it happened to poor and homeless people. Nicole wasn't poor. She wasn't homeless. She was a beautiful woman with so much life and so much to do ahead of her. So why her? Why didn't people take it seriously before? You know, I still have a thousand why questions. I'll tell you. I don't think my why questions will ever end or ever be answered because she's one not here to answer them. And I don't think anybody has an answer for that. Yeah. Why Nicole? Yeah. Oh, Denise.
00:33:22
Speaker 2: So the book is called For My Sister Nicole, Love Shouldn't Hurt, What to Know About Domestic Violence. Denise, I can't thank you enough for this conversation. I am in awe of you. Again, I'm just profoundly sorry that you even have to do this. But I'm grateful for all of the work you're doing, as are all of the women in this country.
00:33:46
Speaker 3: Thank you so much. Thank you. Well, thank you. It's been a pleasure and it was really great meeting you.
00:33:53
Speaker 1: You too.
00:33:53
Speaker 2: Everyone buy this book and read it. It's beautiful and it's important. Thank you so much, Denise.
00:33:59
Speaker 3: Thank you.
