Fred and Kim Goldman on OJ Simpson’s Trial Scars, Hollywood’s True Crime Obsession

It’s been nearly three decades since Fred Goldman and his daughter Kim Goldman became reluctant celebrities almost overnight, much to the almost unimaginable pain of Ron Goldman, his son, and his brother, respectively. Ronnie was a 25-year-old waitress and tennis teacher who was murdered along with Nicole Brown Simpson outside her Brentwood home on July 12, 1994. But in a dark twist, she arrives at the scene of Nicole’s murder and suffer the same fate.

What followed was the Trial of the Century, where Nicole’s ex-husband, NFL star turned actor OJ Simpson, was ultimately found not guilty of either murder. In 1997, a civil suit found Simpson responsible for both deaths and awarded the Goldmans millions of dollars in damages — less than 1%, they say. Simpson, now 74, was later arrested for the 2007 armed robbery of a sporting goods store in Las Vegas. He was released in 2017 after serving nine years. He currently lives in Las Vegas at a friend’s house and regularly shares his thoughts on current events on Twitter.

Ahead of the July 11 premiere of his new podcast from Kast Media, the so-called media circusKim Goldman, now 50, agreed to sit next to her 81-year-old father for a lengthy discussion. the hollywood reporter An interview covering everything from the Simpson trial to the true crime industry that grew out of it and the latest obsession with celebrity trials. Johnny Depp x Amber Heard.

You were discussing the January 6th committee hearings when I entered the room. Let’s start from there. What do you think of them?

Freddy GOLD MAN Someone said, “At some point, presenting facts, presenting information, becomes irrelevant when it comes to people’s emotions and what they feel is the truth.” I found it very interesting because we live in a time where there is a lot of misinformation. Sometimes that doesn’t necessarily help convey the truth when there are people who just don’t want to.

This idea ties in with what your family has experienced: this truth has become quite secondary to people’s belief systems.

Freddy I agree with that. But as long as there is someone willing to lie, that will always happen. In the case of the trial, it was the defense lawyers who wanted to lie and spread the lie.

Kim Goldman We are almost 30 years old. Despite the vast amount of information and facts, photographs, documents and testimonies, people keep denying and stating what the facts are because they don’t want to believe that their favorite football player can do something so despicable.

How many millions were awarded in the Goldmans civil suit against OJ Simpson?

Kim Between all of us, it was US$ 31 million. The rest went to the Browns. Now it’s almost 90 million dollars.

Freddy It grows 10% per year. It’s a ridiculous number, none have appeared yet.

Didn’t you see a dollar?

Freddy No, he never paid a cent. Whatever we could get out of him, we got out of him by our own efforts.

With what

Kim when be if I did book [an infamous “hypothetical” confessional and accompanying TV special that earned Simpson $600,000 before being canceled by HarperCollins and Fox network] He was apprehended, taken to bankruptcy court. We received orders to publish that book. Everyone who owed money put their IOU in the pot, and all the money raised from the publication of this book was used to pay everyone who owed it. A very small part of that was our judgment. I really don’t think there’s much beyond that.

Your property? There’s nothing here?

Kim He moved to Florida, which is a debtor-friendly state. Therefore, all of his property is protected by Florida property laws. Also your pension funds and any pensions you have. Everything was protected.

Freddy He had a team of lawyers who basically helped him hide his assets. When all was said and done, we got the court ruling that he was responsible for the deaths of Ronnie and Nicole, which was the last big issue. Sacrifice is always an important topic.

This podcast you’re doing, Kim… media circus. Can you explain the premise?

Kim It’s about taking on high-profile cases and talking to people directly affected by the media. It is a revelation of personal and community tragedy, and the subject of countless television shows, interviews, phone calls, and swarms of journalists over the years, and how this affects or hinders the ability to heal, recover, and restore justice. Or justice will not be done.

What was your own experience of being in that light and, years later, seeing it as in a Simpsons documentary? DO: Made in America and the FX series People like OJ vs. Simpson: American Crime Story?

Kim It was very difficult to constantly monitor, observe, observe, characterize and judge. That you have an entire country, even globally, that had this massive obsession with this thing, which to us were just our loved ones. We do not understand. The fact that 28 years later it’s still attracting such incredible attention baffles me. Was hard. it was wonderful it was ugly it was supportive. It was isolation. I think it really runs the gamut of every emotion imaginable. The whole world is watching this. It’s surreal to even try to argue.

Freddy With everyone watching, I found myself in the position of asking a question and having to gauge how I responded so as not to offend. How strange that you would think like that about something that was so public.

Fred, you were the archetype of the new media to me: pure anger, pain and sadness in pursuit of justice. I’ve never seen a person like that on TV or in the media. How do you feel about who you’ve become in the media?

Freddy Next thing I know, we’re sitting in a courtroom and something’s going to happen and I’m going to explode. What would end up happening is you could walk out of the courthouse and there would be a bunch of reporters and there would be a place in the lobby where all the interviews would take place. Personally, I could say more or less what I felt at the time. That was a very positive thing for me because I didn’t have to store it and let it rot inside. I could let you go. In the end, it was a good thing for me.

Kim There’s a lot of negativity that followed my dad’s speech because people were saying, “Oh, look how angry he is. Look, he’s always yelling. Look how angry he is. He insults people.” There was a disconnect between that emotion and the perception that it was justified and appropriate.

Every time his father cried and raged on TV, he was reminded that it’s not entertainment. This is the life of the people.

Kim But not everyone felt that way. He got so far away from my brother and Nicole, and after us, that he spoke of a murderer. It was about Johnnie Cochran. It was Marcia Clark. He became anything but a victim. People felt they had property.

Freddy Not long ago, I spoke at an event in Arizona. As I always do, I discuss the subject of weapons. A few days later, I received a letter in the mail. It was signed. The man’s name, address, phone number, everything. He blamed me for Ronnie’s death because I didn’t arm my son with a weapon he could use to defend himself. The man kept saying that I was to blame for my son’s death because he didn’t think everyone had a gun. Here’s this nutcase putting his faith in something that happened many years ago, just because he could.

With the rise of true crime as a big money post-trial entertainment genre, I wonder how you feel about the people who profit from it.

Freddy I think the bottom line is that we’re discussing victimization of people, whether they’ve been sexually assaulted, murdered, etc. , dead, etc. It may seem like a less important issue, but making a profit is more important.

I think we sometimes forget that in addition to the actual victims of crime, there are many additional victims, family members, loved ones, friends, etc. People seem to forget that everyone who has been affected has relatives, loved ones who have been affected again.

I wonder if any of you have seen the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard trial, which has also become a national celebrity obsession? Some feel that this decision marked the end of the #MeToo era and that it was a decision against women. I would like to know if you have any ideas on this.

Freddy Well, not because I didn’t pay attention to it.

Kim What I have is seeing two people who were in a toxic situation that everyone was exposed to and now everyone has something to say. Now comes the memes. People are made fun of and made fun of. It really turned into something grotesque for me. I think it hurts victims and survivors who actually think about bringing their charges, whether it’s a billionaire celebrity or their boss.

Returning to Ron’s thoughts, can you tell me something about him that we might not know about him?

Freddy Ronnie is in my thoughts literally every day. Every day. I still have pictures of her. I have pictures of him at my house. There isn’t a day that I don’t remember or something happens that doesn’t bring him back to life and what he did, so to speak. It never goes away. It never goes away.

where do you live now

Freddy I live in Arizona on the outskirts of Phoenix. We’ve been here for several years. We have been in our current home for 16 years. We have been in Arizona for approximately 24 years.

Kim I still live in the Los Angeles area.

Are you avoiding Brentwood?

Kim Yup. I didn’t go back to Brentwood. [since the murder]. You must enter Brentwood on purpose. You can’t trip over it by accident, most of the time. I had two experiences there, one when we had to take my brother’s suit to bury us and clean his apartment, and once on a blind date. My blind date passed Brentwood and I had an anxiety attack. It’s very easy for me to avoid Brentwood. It’s very painful.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.