Troubled Marriage Becomes Tragic

Jul 19, 1994

Don Davis

Excerpted from "Fallen Hero: The Shocking True Story Behind the O.J. Simpson Tragedy," St. Martin's Press, by Don Davis.

In 1977, while he was still playing pro football, O.J. Simpson was in a Los Angeles restaurant called The Daisy and the waitress serving him was a breathtaking, willowy blond teenager with flawlessly tanned skin. Everything about her was gorgeous, from the flashing eyes to the knockout figure. The 30-year-old O.J. soon asked 18-year-old Nicole Brown, who stood only a head shorter than him, for a date.

A new and thrilling world suddenly opened for the young Nicole. She was just out of high school in Dana Point, a beach community of Orange County south of Los Angeles where attractive blond girls like her usually paired off with equally blond surfer boys. Born in Frankfurt, Germany, and raised in California, she had been a vibrant and socially active girl, filled with thoughts of becoming a fashion model. One fellow student recalled there was an aura about the tall blond girl, who knew "she was going to go somewhere and be somebody."

Almost immediately after Nicole met Simpson, her career as a waitress came to an end and she moved out of her small apartment and into her boyfriend's mansion in the posh Los Angeles enclave of Brentwood. She was taken by O.J. to the parties of the elite in the entertainment, sports and media worlds. They were treated like royalty wherever they went.

After the divorce between Marguerite and O.J. had become final in 1979, and having lived with him since 1978, Nicole married O.J. in a private ceremony beneath a tent on the lawn of his Brentwood home in February 1985. Three months earlier she had signed a prenuptial agreement that stated if they broke up, she would not be able to claim his fortune, at that time $10 million.

Whatever Nicole wanted, she could have, and she indulged herself in good times. There was travel to exciting places, a $1.9-million beachfront home in Laguna Beach, ski vacations to Vail, Colo., and a yearly visit to Hawaii. The best hotels, the best seats in the best restaurants, expensive automobiles, and fawning service provided by the full staff of servants at the opulent mansion in Brentwood.

There is a price, however, for everything, and the amount to be paid is not always measured in dollars.

For Nicole, the price was being a trophy wife, someone to be displayed with pride. O.J. was jealous and so possessive that he forced her to drop out of junior college so she could constantly be at his side. Her only career was to be Mrs. O.J. Simpson. But that did not seem to be a two-way street with him, and O.J.'s former high-school chum, Joe Bell, said women constantly threw themselves at him. As Marguerite had before her, Nicole felt jealous and helpless.

Something even more serious was wrong with the relationship, however, and their marriage became tempestuous. Calls to the Simpson residence in Brentwood began to show up on police blotters, and the noise of their arguments could be heard by neighbors. "It's an ongoing problem," said one cop of the visits to the mansion, but it was not new behavior for the Simpsons. One of Nicole's old neighbors remembered hearing the two shouting at each other even when they were courting. Friends said they noticed marks on Nicole but were reluctant to say anything.

The abuse becomes public

The superstar's abuse of his wife exploded into public view in the pre-dawn hours of New Year's Day 1989. Police once again received a 911 call to the Simpson household from Nicole. Upon arriving, the officers were astonished to find a bruised and bleeding Nicole, clad only in sweat pants and a bra, hiding in the bushes. She ran to the gate to let them inside, clung to the officers as if they were saving her from drowning, and wept. "He's going to kill me, he's going to kill me."

A shouting O.J. Simpson appeared at the front door in his bathrobe, demanding to know why the officers were making such a big deal of this particular incident, which, after all, was just a "family matter." Other cops had been to the house many other times and nothing had ever been done.

"I don't want this woman sleeping in my bed anymore. I've got two women and I don't want that woman in my bed anymore!" he shouted. Then O.J. jumped into his Bentley and fled the scene. The cops asked if O.J. had a gun. Nicole told them: "He's got lots of guns." They went after him.

She wouldn't press charges

In court, Nicole refused once again to press charges against O.J. But Deputy City Attorney Robert Pingle didn't care about Simpson's feelings. Pingle had seen the terrified Nicole and was shocked by her injuries. He wanted O.J. to learn a hard lesson, and suggested the court hand down a sentence of 30 days in jail because Simpson had shown no remorse over beating his wife. Pingle filed charges of spousal battery.

O.J. entered a plea of no contest, essentially not pleading either guilty or innocent. On May 24, 1989, an apparently starstruck municipal judge in West Los Angeles gave Simpson a sentence of two years' probation and ordered him to pay a $200 fine, donate $500 to a shelter for battered women, perform 120 hours of community service, and get psychiatric counseling.

Their relationship deteriorated from that point. All efforts to start anew failed as they whirled downward in a love-hate spiral, the feuds and reconciliations becoming part of an ongoing tapestry.

"He beat her all through the marriage and after they were separated, he would stalk her," recalled Susan Forward, Nicole's therapist and author of a bestselling book about battered wives, "Men Who Hate Women and the Women Who Love Them." "He would say things to her like, `If I can't have you, then no one can.' "

Three years later, on March 23, 1992, Jet magazine carried a photograph of the couple and a brief story that said: "After a tumultuous seven-year marriage that included charges of wife-beating, football Hall of Fame inductee and television sportscaster O.J. Simpson was recently hit with divorce papers by his white wife, Nicole."

But the prenuptial agreement they had signed so long ago went into legal effect and shot down her attempts to make more substantial claims. She was awarded a lump-sum settlement of $435,750, a luxury condominium at 875 S. Bundy Drive, not far from Simpson's home, and $10,000 a month in child support. The court gave her custody of her two children.

Finally, the marriage of seven years came to an end, but certainly not their relationship. The story would later end with a mysterious tragedy of classic proportions when Nicole and her friend Ron Goldman were slain at her Brentwood townhouse. The story would dominate the attention of the nation and send shock waves around the world.