O.J. Simpson Finally Gets Sidelined in Lifetime’s New Series ‘The Life & Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson’

It’s amazing it’s taken this long to tell the full narrative of Nicole Brown Simpson, but her story has found the perfect home with Lifetime, a network devoted to helping stop violence against women. Lifetime will air the new docuseries The Life & Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson beginning on Saturday, June 1 at 8pmET (Part 1) and continuing on Sunday, June 2 at 8pmET (Part 2).

The project has been in the works for quite some time and is pegged to the 30-year anniversary month of her death (Nicole Brown died on June 12, 1994). More than 50 participants — including her sisters, close family and friends — are participating in the docuseries, which includes exclusive archival video and unprecedented family access.

“She was my best friend, and the one thing I could not protect her from was the monster she was married to,” one of Nicole’s sisters says in the trailer for The Life and Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson. 

“We are here to vindicate her,” says one woman in the trailer. “Don’t get in our way.”

If you’re of a certain age, you’ll likely remember where you were the evening of June 17, 1994, when regularly scheduled programming was interrupted by aerial footage of a white Ford Bronco pursued at low speed by several police squads through an empty Interstate 405 in Los Angeles. In the back of the vehicle was football legend O.J. Simpson, charged with the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. While the world watched that chase unfold – her family, children and friends mourned her horrific death at just 35 years old.

Photo by Roman Salicki/WWD/Penske Media via Getty Images

How many people tuned in to the O.J. verdict in 1995?

In 1995, Simpson stood trial for the slayings of Nicole Brown and Goldman. Nineteen channels covered the eight-month spectacle, and 91 percent of Americans watching TV tuned in to the verdict. There’s no doubt you unlikely gathered around a TV on Oct. 3, 1995, when the not-guilty verdict in Simpson’s lengthy, tumultuous trial was read.

Reports at the time said it cost the economy $480 million as it was the most unproductive half-hour in U.S. history. Simpson was later found liable in a 1997 civil lawsuit for their deaths, where the families of Brown and Goldman won a $33.5 million civil judgment.

How old are Nicole and O.J. Simpsons kids today?

While much of this tragic story has focused around the former NFL superstar, who died of cancer April 10, 2024, many don’t know the full true story of Nicole Brown — who was just 18-years-old working as a waitress at a Beverly Hills club when she met O.J., who was then still married to his first wife Marguerite Whitley.

The two were married in 1985 and had two children Sydney Brooke Simpson (who was just 8 at the time of her mother’s murder is now 38) and Justin Ryan Simpson (who was just 5 at the time of his mother’s murder is now 35). The couple divorced in 1992. During and after their marriage Nicole Brown was verbally and physically abused by Simpson, in one incident in 1989 police found her hidden outside their home “badly beaten and half-naked.” Simpson was convicted of spousal abuse and was let off with a fine and probation.

“The murder of Nicole Brown Simpson brought private violence into public view,” shared Amanda Pyron, the executive director of the Network, an advocacy organization in Chicago, told the New York Times. “It forced people to really reckon with their feelings on relationship violence and the role of law enforcement in keeping women safe.”

When does the Nicole Brown Simpson documentary air on Lifetime?

Lifetime is devoted to sharing Nicole Brown Simpson’s story in the new two-part documentary series The Life & Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson beginning on Saturday, June 1 at 8pmET and concluding on Sunday, June 2 at 8pmET.