Nicole Brown Simpson

She was the glamorous ex-wife of a National Football League (NFL) legend. She was the victim of one of the most infamous crimes of the second half of the 20th century. She became a rallying cry for police to change the way they dealt with reports of domestic violence. But Nicole Brown Simpson was also a mother, daughter, sister, and a woman who struggled with being in an abusive relationship with a man for whom she had profound feelings.

In short, she was far more than “O.J. Simpson’s wife.”

Early life

Nicole Brown was born in Germany on May 19, 1959, to Louis Brown and Juditha Baur Brown. Louis Brown had served in the military and then worked for The Stars and Stripes newspaper. Nicole Brown was the second of the couple’s four daughters (Denise, who was older, and Dominique and Tanya, who were younger). When Denise and Nicole were very young, the family moved to California, where Louis Brown was a businessman. By all accounts, Nicole Brown’s childhood was typical of 1960s and ’70s suburbia: She was a Girl Scout, took dance lessons, and was a homecoming princess at Dana Hills High School in Dana Point, California.

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Meeting Simpson

Described by friends as a “free spirit” in high school, Brown was 18 and working as a waitress in a posh Beverly Hills nightclub when she met Simpson, who was nearing the end of his football career. Simpson, married and the father of three, was 12 years older than Brown. Of their relationship, her sister Denise Brown said, “When she fell in love with him, she fell hard.” The couple married in 1985.

Turbulent relationship and divorce

To the outside world, O.J. and Nicole Brown Simpson seemed like the perfect glamour couple. They lived in the tony neighborhood of Brentwood, took opulent vacations, and owned multiple homes. She drove a Ferrari. In 1985 the couple had a daughter, Sydney; three years later, son Justin was born. Motherhood agreed with Brown Simpson, and she was active in caring for her children.

Throughout their marriage the relationship was volatile and at times violent. Brown Simpson accused her husband of infidelity. In her diary, she recounted verbal abuse from Simpson during her pregnancies, including his calling her a “fat pig.”

But the abuse went well beyond hurtful words. On January 1, 1989, police were summoned to the Simpson house. Officers found Brown Simpson cowering in the bushes outside the house; she repeatedly told them, “He’s going to kill me.” She had a cut lip, a black eye, a swollen cheek, and a handprint around her neck. She was treated for her injuries at a hospital. Brown Simpson told the officers at the scene that she had called police eight times earlier while being abused.

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You never do anything about him. You talk to him and then you leave. I want him arrested.

Later in 1989 Simpson pleaded no contest to charges related to the assault, was ordered to do community service, and put on probation for two years.

Three years later, in 1992, Brown Simpson filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. But despite the record of abuse, the couple stayed in touch, co-parenting their children. At one point in 1993 Brown Simpson was considering a reconciliation with Simpson. But in October 1993 Brown Simpson called 911 to tell police that her ex-husband had broken into her home and was “ranting and raving.” When the dispatcher asked what he looked like, she replied: “It’s O.J. Simpson. I think you know his record.”

Less than nine months later, Brown Simpson was dead. She was 35 years old.

Death and the “trial of the century”

On the evening of June 12, 1994, police were called to the home of Brown Simpson on Bundy Drive in Brentwood. They found Brown Simpson stabbed so viciously that she was nearly decapitated. A friend, Ronald Goldman, who may have interrupted the attack, was also slain.

Simpson quickly emerged as a leading suspect in the murders, although he said he was at his Brentwood home waiting for a limousine to take him to the airport at the time of the attack. Five days later Simpson was arrested after what was one of the more surreal car chases in history. As a passenger in a white Ford Bronco, Simpson was driven on the highways of Los Angeles at a speed of 35 miles per hour. For hours people across the country watched the scene unfold on live television. It was a preview of what was to come.

In January 1995 People v. O.J. Simpson was not merely a court case but also a real-life soap opera that was televised nationwide; it is widely seen as the event that launched the 24-hour news cycle. On October 3 Simpson was acquitted of the murders of Brown Simpson and Goldman, in a case that divided the country along racial lines. The Goldman and Brown families subsequently filed a civil suit in which Simpson was found responsible for the deaths and ordered to pay $33.5 million in restitution. Simpson, who died in 2024, always maintained his innocence.

Nicole Brown Simpson’s legacy

In the months after Brown Simpson’s death, Congress passed the Violence Against Women Act. It was championed by her sister Denise Brown, and the attention surrounding the murder is credited with raising awareness of domestic abuse and helping garner the votes necessary for passage. In the wake of Brown Simpson’s death, donations to shelters for battered women increased, as did phone calls by women to shelters.