No topic was off limits for David Letterman, 73, in a new interview with Kim Kardashian, 39 — including OJ Simpson‘s murder trial that had her parents Kris Jenner, 64, and the late Robert Kardashian Sr. taking sides. Robert, of course, is best known for his role on OJ’s legal defense team alongside lawyer Johnnie Cochran, while Kris was a close friend of the late Nicole Brown Simpson. In a sit-down interview on David’s My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman, which premieres on Netflix on Oct. 21, Kim reflected on what the experience was like for her and her siblings.
“The week before that happened we were all in Mexico together at a family trip, the Simpsons and us — then this happening was kind of unimaginable” the KKW Beauty founder explained, referring to Nicole’s tragic murder, which happened in Brentwood in June 1994. After OJ was arrested, the former football star reached out to Kris from prison. “Then having your dad take one side and your mom take the complete opposite side. I mean, I remember answering the phone. It was dinnertime and we were all sitting down, and I answered the phone and it was a call from jail. It was OJ, and I handed my mom the phone because he wanted to speak to her. I just remember them getting into it. My mom was extremely vocal on her feelings,” Kim revealed.
“It kind of tore our family apart I’d say for the whole time of the trial,” the SKIMS founder said. Following one of the most publicized criminal trials in history, OJ was acquitted of all charges related to the murders of Nicole and her friend Ron Goldman — but going through the trial was difficult for Kim, Kourtney, Khloe and Rob. “[Kris] believed that, you know, her friend was murdered by him and that was really traumatizing for her. And then we’d go to my dad’s house and it was a whole other situation there. It would be like [OJ’s lawyers] Johnnie Cochran, Bob Shapiro, my dad, like the whole team so we really didn’t know what to believe or whose side to take as kids because we didn’t want to hurt one of our parents’ feelings,” she told Dave.
Kim, who has become a powerful activist for prison reform and is studying to become a lawyer just like her dad, got a close look at court life when she attended the trial in-person. “My dad took us to court one day with him and he took us out of school and didn’t my mom and I remember my mom was sitting with Nicole’s parents and Kourtney and I were sitting right behind OJ,” the Keeping Up With The Kardashians star revealed. “And we look over at my mom and she’s like giving us this death stare like, ‘What are you doing out of school? What are you doing here?’ And Kourtney and I were like, ‘Just look straight. Do not look at mom’,” she remembered, as Kris laughed in the audience.
While Kris has been vocal about her thoughts around the trial, Kim declined to share her opinion out of respect for OJ and Nicole’s children Sydney, 35, and Justin, 32. “You know, I’ve never expressed how I felt about [the verdict] because I just respect his children,” she explained, adding that she would never want to “hurt someone’s feelings publicly.” Catch Kim’s full sit down interview with Dave on the Oct. 21 premiere of My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman on Netflix.