Nicole Brown Simpson (née Brown; May 19, 1959 – June 12, 1994) was a German and American woman best known for being the second wife of American professional football player, actor, and media personality O. J. Simpson. She was murdered outside her Brentwood home, along with her friend Ron Goldman, in 1994.

Brown was born in Frankfurt, West Germany, and moved to the U.S. early in her life. Brown and Simpson met in 1977 and married in 1985, five years after Simpson had retired from professional American football. Their marriage lasted for eight years, and they had a daughter and a son together. Reports suggest that Simpson emotionally, verbally, and physically abused Brown throughout their relationship, which continued after their divorce. They made an attempt at reconciliation, but later broke up again, seemingly permanently, in May 1994.

In June 1994, Brown and Goldman were stabbed to death, and Simpson was tried for the murders. Following a highly publicized criminal trial, Simpson was acquitted of all charges, though he was later found liable for the wrongful deaths in a civil lawsuit in 1997. No other suspects have ever been identified, and the killings remain unsolved, although Brown's family has expressed the belief that Simpson committed the murders and was the sole perpetrator.

Early life

Nicole Brown was born on May 19, 1959, in Frankfurt, West Germany, to Juditha Anne "Judy" Brown (née Baur) and Louis Hezekiah "Lou" Brown Jr. Her mother was German, and her father American. Lou Brown served in World War II as a pilot and married in Switzerland after the war.[7] Nicole was the second of four daughters (the others being Denise, Dominique, and Tanya). From her father's previous marriage, she had two older half-sisters (Wendy and Margit) and one older half-brother (Tracy). After moving to the United States, she attended Rancho Alamitos High School in Garden Grove, California. She graduated from Dana Hills High School, in Dana Point, California, in 1976. She was raised Catholic.

In Brown's 1976 senior yearbook from Dana Hills High School, her nickname is "nick" and her quote is that she: "remembers Jr. Sr. prom, kissing a pumpkin at the homecoming dance '74, one of the semi-finalists for Homecoming, plans to ski Europe, go to Brooks photo school, get Scott, 'Be yourself, don't be phony, you don't have to do anything.'" Brown's mention of "Brooks photo school" was referring to The Brooks Institute of Photography that operated from 1945 to 2016 in the Santa Barbara, California area, a two-hour drive from her high school.

Relationship with O. J. Simpson

Early relationship

Brown met American professional football player, actor, and media personality O. J. Simpson in 1977, when he was 30 and she was 18. At the time, she was waitressing at The Daisy, a nightclub in Beverly Hills, California. They began dating while Simpson was still married to his first wife, Marguerite Whitley, who was then pregnant with their daughter Aaren. Simpson and Whitley divorced in March 1979. "Before we had separated in 1977, Nicole would drive by the house or check to see if his car was there," Marguerite later said in an interview with Barbara Walters in 1995. "She would call many times and say that she was Cathy Randa, who's O.J.'s secretary. So I knew who she was. I didn't actually know her personally."

In the June 3, 2024 issue of People, Brown's older sister Denise revealed that Simpson was occasionally hostile towards Nicole even during the early days of their relationship, including on one occasion in 1977 after she and her family had gone to upstate New York to attend a Buffalo Bills game that Simpson was playing in. According to Denise, he "flipped out" during this occasion, after seeing Nicole kiss a mutual male friend on the cheek and "had her in the upstairs bathroom crying. He said, 'You embarrassed me.'"

Brown had a non-speaking acting part as "Passenger on Bus" in the 1980 TV film Detour to Terror, starring Simpson who executive produced the film. During the 1984 Summer Olympics torch relay, Simpson carried the torch on Santa Monica's California Incline road, with Brown running a few steps behind him. Simpson was among the many celebrities who attended the premiere of the Michael Jackson short film Captain EO in 1986, which Brown also attended.

Marriage

Brown and Simpson married on February 2, 1985, five years after his retirement from professional football. The couple had two children, Sydney Brooke Simpson (b. 1985) and Justin Ryan Simpson (b. 1988), both delivered via caesarian section. Additionally, she had three abortions (one outside of wedlock). The marriage lasted seven years. According to Denise Brown, Nicole considered motherhood to be her crowning achievement, though Simpson became more volatile towards her after the children were born.

According to Sheila Weller, "[Simpson and Brown] were a dramatic, fractious, mutually obsessed couple before they married, after they married, after they divorced in 1992, and after they reconciled."

Domestic violence

According to multiple accounts, Simpson emotionally, verbally, and physically abused Brown throughout their relationship, and the abuse continued after their divorce. According to Brown's sister Dominique, Simpson referred to his wife as a "fat pig" during a pregnancy. Family friend Robin Greer stated that Simpson had refused to have sex with Brown in the months after her pregnancy because of its effect on her weight. Greer also claimed that he had Brown followed numerous times, and would "plant" people in the clubs she and Brown went out to at night to report their activities back to Simpson.

Accounts from Brown's diary date physical abuse as far back as 1978. She called the police on Simpson numerous times over the course of their marriage, but most of the calls were not met with serious response by the LAPD because of Simpson's celebrity status. The first police report was filed after an incident on New Year's Day 1989. On December 31, Brown had phoned the police, saying that she thought Simpson was going to kill her. She was found by the responding officer hiding in the bushes outside their home, "badly beaten and half-naked". Authorities said Simpson had "punched, slapped, and kicked" her. When the reponding officer announced his intent to arrest Simpson, he sped away from the cops in his car. Eventually, he pleaded no contest to spousal abuse. Brown dropped the charges after her parents allegedly encouraged her to reconcile with Simpson, who was enabling her father, Louis, to invest in a lucrative Hertz car rental facility at The Ritz Carlton at Monarch Bay, California, which significantly benefited the Brown family financially.

In addition to the physical abuse, Simpson was also reported to have been an avid womanizer who engaged in numerous infidelities while married to Brown. In the 2016 documentary O.J.: Made in America, Robin Greer said that the couple were constantly fighting over Simpson's affairs with other women. Greer even noted how Simpson had made repeated advances towards her as well. The police report from the New Years Day incident indicated that Simpson had said: "I don't want that woman [Brown] sleeping in my bed anymore! I got two women, and I don't want that woman in my bed anymore." At the time of their separation, he informed Brown of his ongoing one-year extramarital affair with Tawny Kitaen. The affair was revealed at Simpson's 1997 civil trial for wrongful death.

Among the more caustic accounts, in American Tragedy: The Uncensored Story of the Simpson Defense, former maid Bethy Vaquerano alleged that Brown was racist and had been physically abusive towards Simpson. In her book I’m Not Dancing Anymore, Simpson’s niece Terri Baker said Brown could be very insulting to people when she was angry and that she observed Brown insulting and slapping Simpson in the past.

A family friend claimed that Simpson had told Brown's friends that if he ever "caught her with anyone, he would kill her". Brown's friend Kris Jenner claimed that Brown had at one point told her, "Things are really bad between O.J. and I, and he's going to kill me, and he's going to get away with it." The two broke up again, seemingly permanently, in May 1994. In total, prosecutors for Simpson's murder trial found 62 incidents of abusive behavior by Simpson towards Brown. News reporting regarding these incidents led to California enforcing its 1986 laws to better protect domestic violence victims. Hertz continued airing its commercials featuring Simpson until they cut all ties with him amid the murder trial.

Divorce

In January 1992, Brown moved into a rental home in Brentwood, a neighborhood in Los Angeles, California. The property was a four-bedroom, Tudor-style house with 3,400 square feet on Gretna Green Way, where she lived for two years.

Simpson filed for divorce on February 25, 1992, citing irreconcilable differences. They then shared custody of their two children.

Ongoing relationship and abuse

Reports suggest that in 1993, after the divorce, Brown and Simpson made an attempt at reconciliation. During this time Simpson continued his abuse of Brown. She told her mother after the divorce that Simpson was following her and stated, "I go to the gas station, he's there. I go to the Payless shoe store, and he's there. I'm driving, and he's behind me.'"

On October 25, 1993, Brown called the police to report Simpson being violent again, after he had allegedly found a photo of a man Brown had dated while they were broken up. Brown called 911, crying and saying that Simpson was "going to beat the shit out of me". Simpson angrily shouted in the background, "You didn't give a shit about the kids when you were [having sex with him] in the living room! They were here! Didn't care about the kids then!" He repeatedly said, "I'm leaving with my two fucking kids is when I'm leaving."

When the police arrived, Brown was secretly recorded by Sgt. Craig Lally. "He gets a very animalistic look in him," Brown stated. "All his veins pop out, his eyes are black and just black, I mean cold, like an animal. I mean very, very weird. And when I see it, it just scares me." Brown also stated that Simpson had not hit her in four years, referring to the January 1, 1989 incident as the last time he had become physical with her.

Brown moved out of their shared home several months after this incident, and the relationship ended.

Post-divorce life

Brown met and became friends with Kato Kaelin on a skiing trip in Aspen, Colorado, in December 1992. He later moved into the guest house on Brown's property on Gretna Green Way and lived there for a year. Kaelin paid rent and helped take care of Sydney and Justin as part of the living arrangement. Brown also entertained other suitors, including restaurateur Keith Zlomsowitch and Marcus Allen. Despite speculation of her having been a recreational drug user during this time, there is no solid evidence of Brown using drugs; she had no drugs in her system at the time of her death and her house was clear of drug paraphernalia.

Brown and Faye Resnick first met in 1990. According to Robert Kardashian, Resnick only knew Brown for a year and a half. The two socialized in and around Brentwood, Los Angeles and vacationed in Mexico together. Resnick's third husband, Paul, reported that a concerned Brown called him in early June 1994 to report that "Faye was getting out of control" and abusing cocaine again. Resnick stayed for several days at Brown's condominium until on June 9, 1994, Brown and several other friends conducted an intervention and persuaded Resnick to check into the Exodus Recovery Center in Marina Del Rey, California.

In January 1994, Brown moved just a few minutes away from her home on Gretna Green Way to a three-story, rental townhouse on Bundy Drive in Brentwood. It was a Mediterranean-style residence that was 3,400 square feet with multiple patios and a "rooftop sundeck". In Brown's Brentwood neighborhood, situated near the base of the Santa Monica Mountains and four miles from the ocean, there were country clubs, local and state parks, hiking trails, and popular attractions like the Santa Monica Pier. At the time, she drove a Ferrari, which she later lent to Ron Goldman whom she had met some six weeks prior to their deaths. The upscale area had shops, restaurants, and grocery markets near her home. Brown's sister Denise described this period in a 1994 interview, saying that Nicole "was just so vivacious, so full of life" and "I was so happy for her. For the first time in her life, she was able to have her own friends. We were talking about going to Yosemite, camping, taking the kids to Club Med. Everything was going to revolve around the kids."

Foundation

The Nicole Brown Simpson Foundation was established in 1994 in Brown's memory. Later renamed the Nicole Brown Charitable Foundation, it reportedly cut back on grantmaking in 1999 due to a drop in donations and questionable management practices.

Tributes

In a rare 1996 VHS video by her parents called A Tribute to Nicole, Brown is described as having had a "happy childhood" growing up in a "close family" and as "lov[ing] interior decorating." Clips from the family's home movies show her as a young girl playing with stuffed animals, swimming in a pool, dancing, carrying school books, and blowing out birthday candles on cupcakes. She was characterized by her mother as "warm", "wonderful", and "free-spirited".

R&B group H-Town dedicated their 1997 album Ladies Edition, Woman's World to Brown and "all the women of the world" for what they felt were grievous transgressions in attitude towards women on the part of the hip-hop world.

Kato Kaelin described Brown in a 2024 interview as a "beautiful" friend who was a "beacon of light, always bright, always fun". Kris Jenner said Brown was "one of [her] best friends" with whom she often took family vacations. Jenner also shared memories of a Los Angeles restaurant she used to frequent with Brown and their mutual friend, Faye Resnick.

Brown's sister, Tanya Brown, said in a 2019 interview that "Nicole was a mom: she put her kids first, she put everybody else first. My sister had the ability to live life, live it bright, live it large." That same year, Tanya wrote an article claiming that she had forgiven Simpson, despite believing him responsible for her sister's murder.

Kris Jenner named her fourth daughter, Kendall Nicole Jenner, after Brown. Kendall was born 17 months after Brown's death.

When filmmaker Ezra Edelman, director of the documentary O.J.: Made in America, won the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, he dedicated the award to both Brown and Goldman in his acceptance speech.

Death of parents

On July 3, 2014, Brown's father, Louis Hezekiah "Lou" Brown Jr., died aged 90. He was interred next to Nicole in Ascension Cemetery in Lake Forest, California. Nicole's headstone had space for an additional inscription, so it was altered to include her father.

On November 8, 2020, Brown's mother, Juditha Anne "Judi" Baur Brown, died aged 89. She was interred in Ascension Cemetery next to her husband and daughter. Nicole's original headstone was replaced by a larger one that included the inscriptions for both of her parents on it.