Nicole Brown Simpson’s sisters sat down for an interview with Diane Sawyer just over a month after OJ’s death, which they said they had mixed feelings about.
The trio, Tanya, Dominique and Denise, revealed how they felt about the former football player’s death at the age of 76 at his Las Vegas home and told the ABC News host some of the unanswered questions surrounding to Nicole’s death.
This ranged from why his sister never left him to whether the former Buffalo Bills running back suffered from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, better known as CTE.
When asked, they said Simpson’s anger was to blame for the fatal stabbing, something they said could have been avoided if they had handled the situation differently.
Brown Simpson was brutally stabbed outside her Los Angeles home on June 15, 1995. Simpson was acquitted in the case surrounding not only her murder, but also that of her friend Ronald Goldman, who was in the house at the time.
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Denise, Dominique and Tanya Brown sat down with Diane Sawyer on Tuesday’s Good Morning America for a revealing interview.
Next month will mark the 30th anniversary of the murder of Brown Simpson, of which her husband OJ was acquitted.
‘I asked him all the “whys” that are not asked. ‘Why don’t you just get out of this relationship? Why don’t you leave him?’ ‘Denise Brown, 66, tearfully recalled the alleged domestic abuse that she said led to the murder.
“Those are things that are not said and I didn’t realize it at the time.”
“I wish I had known more,” added Dominique, 56, visibly moved.
“I just wonder if I could have done more to help her or listen to her.”
Denise, a fierce advocate for stricter domestic abuse laws, claimed her younger sister even once confided in her about a violent argument with Simpson, but she still stayed.
“I sit there and say, ‘Why did he have to take my sister?'” she said, referring to domestic abuse in the home.
‘Why did it have to be Nicole for people to understand that domestic violence can kill?’
Sawyer, 78, sat attentively as the sisters talked, noting that next month will mark 30 years since the night of Nicole’s murder.
At one point, the conversation turned to CTE, a condition that some have theorized could have been a contributing factor in the case. OJ spent 11 seasons in the famous National Football League (NFL).
From the last photo of the Brown family, taken on Mother’s Day 1994. Showing from left to right, Denise, Nicole, Dominique, mother Juditha and youngest Tanya.
On Tuesday, Tanya, 54 (far right), ruled out that the CTE influenced OJ’s actions that night in June 1995, citing a conversation with a well-known sports agent.
Denise, a fierce advocate for stricter domestic abuse laws, claimed her younger sister once told her about a violent argument with Simpson, but she still stayed with him. “I wish I had known more,” Dominique added. “I wonder if he could have done more to help”
Tanya, Denise and Nicole during their youth, when she worked as a waitress, planned to study photography and met her future husband.
“I had a conversation with Leigh Steinberg, the sports agent,” younger sister Tayna, 54, said about the topic.
And he was talking about, “There could have been a traumatic brain injury (with Simpson).”
“And I said, ‘No,'” he concluded, citing Simpson’s alleged mercurial attitude.
‘Possibly,’ he admitted, ‘but, when you know the person’s character and what they’re capable of, yeah, that’s not-‘
“That’s… that’s violence, that’s power and control.”
Simpson was eventually arrested for double murder and tried for the murders of Nicole and Goldman.
In October of that year, he was acquitted of all criminal charges, although in 1997, a civil jury found the soccer star liable for wrongful death.
After Nicole’s death, Dominique said she found her personal handwritten journals that detailed many of the times OJ had physically hit her and the injuries he had inflicted on her.
At one point, the conversation turned to CTE, a condition that some have theorized could have been a contributing factor in the case. OJ spent 11 seasons in the famous National Football League (NFL), mainly for the Buffalo Bills.
Simpson shows the jury a new pair of oversized Aris gloves, similar to gloves found at a Los Angeles crime scene during his double murder trial, which has inspired controversy.
“I found her will, her journals, stacked in a box under the kitchen cabinet with the girl’s artwork and a lot of other things,” Dominique told Sawyer during the meeting.
At one point, Denise, the older sister, chimed in: “I was trying to hide it.”
She went on to detail how OJ’s abuse with Nicole began, recalling how the sports star used to tell her sister, “You’re stupid, you’re ugly, you’re fat, you’re worthless, no one will love you.” “I’m the only one who can put up with you”
“That turns into physical violence, and that’s hitting, kicking and punching,” he said.
He went on to claim that he once found a Polaroid photo of Nicole with a black eye, and when he asked his sister about it, she lied and said it was done by a makeup artist.
‘I said, “Oh my God, Nic, look at that black eye!” Denise said, brightening up at times.
“No, no, it was the studio’s makeup artist,” she credited her sister.
“I said, ‘Oh my God, it looks so real,’ and I threw it back in the drawer. I didn’t know it was a real black eye, I had no idea.
When asked how they felt about his death, they said they had mixed feelings, citing how Nicole’s now adult children with OJ now have neither a mother nor a father. Sydney, 38, and Justin, 35, were just eight and five years old, respectively, when their mother was killed.
When asked how they felt about his death, they said they had mixed feelings, citing how Nicole’s now adult children with OJ now have neither a mother nor a father.
Sydney, 38, and Justin, 35, were just eight and five years old, respectively, when their mother was murdered, something the sisters seemed unwilling to forgive.
“It’s very complicated,” said Dominique, the only sister who responded. “But I have a relationship with children that means everything to me, and I was… very, very sad for them.”
When asked how they had coped with “30 years of anger and anguish,” Tanya added: “A lot of therapy.” It was a hard, unresolved pain, everything affected me a lot ten years later,”
Meanwhile, Dominique, the middle child, remembers: “Sometimes I think, ‘God, I’m incredibly sad today.’
‘And I realized that it was the day she was murdered, or it was her birthday, or something or some memory came up.
The older sister, Denise, concluded: “The pain doesn’t go away, it doesn’t lessen, it doesn’t get better.” But you do the best you can, you keep going and it’s a step forward.”