Kim’s late father, Robert Kardashian Sr., was best friends with O.J. Simpson and represented him in his 1994 murder trial
Kim Kardashian is willing to lean on her connection to Orenthal James “O.J.” Simpson if it’ll help prevent her birthday festivities from getting derailed!
In a preview for next week’s episode of The Kardashians, Kim tells cameras, “It’s my birthday week and I’ve been called to do jury duty.”
Despite that, Kim, 43, still intends to celebrate properly and starts to think outside the box for how she can escape her governmental duties.
“I feel like there’s some kind of O.J. connection that could get me out of jury duty,” she says, before laughing and adding, “Ha! Just kidding!”
Though viewers will have to wait until next week’s episode to see if Kim shows up for jury duty, fans know that she still managed to celebrate her birthday in October with a star-studded private bash at Funke restaurant in Beverly Hills.
Mom Kris Jenner and sisters Khloé Kardashian, Kylie Jenner and Kendall Jenner were in attendance as well as Kim’s friends including Hailey Bieber, Kimora Lee Simmons, Lauren Sánchez and Ivanka Trump. (At the time, Kourtney Kardashian Barker was pregnant and on bed rest so she could not attend.)
O.J., died on April 10 from cancer. His family announced his death at 76 in a tweet on April 11, saying, “On April 10th, our father, Orenthal James Simpson, succumbed to his battle with cancer. He was surrounded by his children and grandchildren.”
As fans know, the Kardashian family has a long history with O.J., who was the best friend (and best man) of Kim’s dad, the late Robert Kardashian Sr., at the time he married Kris Jenner. Later in life, Robert Sr. became a part of his friend’s legal team when O.J. stood trial for the double murder of his wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.
The former NFL player was acquitted of the charges, though the public long maintained hesitancy to declare him not guilty. However, according to NPR, he was found liable for the deaths and was ordered to pay $33.5 million to the families of the victims.
Kris previously spoke about the divide the trial caused the Kardashian family, calling it “devastating.”
“You have Robert Kardashian on the defense team defending [O.J.’s] team, and you have me, my girlfriend’s dead,” Kris said on Dr. Phil in 2009. “It was a very difficult situation and what we needed to do was band together as a family and decide that this isn’t going to tear us apart.”
In the same interview, Kim recalled being a child and feeling she “didn’t know which parent to side with” as the trial unfolded. “I remember going to the courthouse and Kourtney and I went with my dad. My mom’s sitting across [the room] with Nicole Brown’s family,” she said.
Kris then told PEOPLE in 2016: “They were two of the best friends I ever had in my entire life. They were my family. O.J. was like my big brother. So I not only mourned the loss of Nicole, but I mourned the loss of O.J. and that relationship.”
Kim also recounted how the historic trial affected their family dynamics in October 2020 during a sit-down with David Letterman for season 3 of his Netflix talk show, My Next Guest Needs No Introduction.
“It was dinner time, and we were all sitting down, and I answered the phone. It was a call from jail, and it was O.J., and I handed my mom the phone because he wanted to speak to her,” she said. “And I just remember them getting into it.”
Kim, who was around 14 years old at the time of the trial, said it was difficult to navigate the opposition between her divorced parents.
“My mom was extremely vocal on her feelings — she believed that her friend was murdered by him and that was really traumatizing for her,” she explained. “And then we’d go to my dad’s house and it was a whole other situation there. We didn’t really know what to believe or whose side to take as kids, because we didn’t want to hurt one of our parents’ feelings.”
“It tore my family apart, I’d say, for the whole time of the trial,” she added.
