It’s been nearly three decades since Fred Goldman and daughter Kim Goldman were transformed into unwilling celebrities almost overnight amid almost unimaginable grief for Ron Goldman – their son and brother, respectively. Ron was a 25-year-old tennis coach and waiter who, along with Nicole Brown Simpson, was murdered outside her Brentwood home on July 12, 1994. Ron was there to return a pair of sunglasses that Nicole’s mom had left at his restaurant – but in a dark twist, he came upon Nicole’s murder scene and suffered the same fate.
What followed was dubbed the Trial of the Century, with Nicole’s estranged husband, NFL star turned actor PB Simpson, ultimately found not guilty of either murder. A 1997 civil lawsuit found Simpson liable for both deaths and awarded the Goldmans millions in damages — less than 1 percent of which he says has been recovered. Simpson, now 74, later went to jail for a 2007 robbery of sports memorabilia in Las Vegas. He was released in 2017 after serving nine years. He currently lives at a friend’s house in Las Vegas and regularly shares his thoughts on current events on Twitter.
Ahead of the June 11 debut of her new Kast Media podcast called media circusKim Goldman, now 50, agreed to sit next to her father, now 81, for an extended The Hollywood Reporter interview about everything from the Simpson trial to the true crime industry that grew out of it and the latest celebrity trial obsession, Johnny Depp vs Amber Heard†
You were discussing the committee hearings on January 6 when I entered the room. Let’s start there. What do you think about it?
FRED GOLDMAN Someone said, “At some point presenting facts, presenting information becomes irrelevant when you’re dealing with people’s emotions and what they feel in their hearts as true.” I found that really compelling because we’re in a time where there’s massive amounts of misinformation. It doesn’t necessarily help to move the truth when you have people who are just unwilling.
That idea applies to what your family went through – that the truth became quite subordinate to what people’s belief system was.
FRED I would agree. But as long as there is someone who is willing to be the perpetrator of the untruths, it will always be. In the case of the trial, it was the defense attorneys who were willing to lie and spread the lies.
KIM GOLDMAN We are almost at 30 years old. Despite the vast amounts of information and facts and photos and documentation and testimonials, people still reject it and cast suspicion on what the facts are because they don’t want to believe that their beloved footballer could have done something so horrific.
How many millions were awarded to the Goldmans in the civil suit against OJ Simpson?
KIM Between all of us it was $31 million. The rest was for the Browns. It is now almost $90 million.
FRED It increases by 10 percent every year. It’s a ridiculous number, none of which have ever appeared.
Haven’t seen a dollar of it yet?
FRED No, he’s never paid a cent. All we could take away from him was through our own efforts to take things away from him.
Like?
KIM When the 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] was taken from him, it was taken to bankruptcy court. We were commissioned to publish that book. Everyone he ever owed money to threw their IOUs into the pot, and all the money raised from the publication of that book was used to pay off all the people he owed money to. A very small part of it was for our judgment. I don’t think there was more than that.
His real estate? nothing there?
KIM He moved to Florida, a debtor-friendly state. So all of his assets are protected by Florida homestead laws. As well as his pension funds and all his pensions. Everything was protected.
FRED He had a team of lawyers who basically helped him hide assets. When it was all over, we received a court ruling that he was responsible for Ron and Nicole’s deaths, which was the ultimate issue. The victims are always the most important point.
This podcast you’re doing, Kim — media circus† Can you explain the premise?
KIM It’s about high-profile cases and talking to people who are directly affected by the mass media. It’s a private tragedy and the public eye, and discussing the impact of being the subject of countless television shows and interviews and phone calls and a barrage of journalists over the years, how it affects one’s ability to heal and and getting justice affects or hinders, or not getting justice.
What was your own experience of being under that gloss and then seeing it crop up in the Simpson documentary years later? PB: Made in America and the FX series The People v. OJ Simpson: American Crime Story†
KIM It was really hard to be watched, researched and watched and characterized and judged all the time. That you have an entire country, including worldwide, that had a massive fascination for this cause, which to us was just our loved ones. We didn’t get it. The fact that it still attracts such incredible attention 28 years later baffles me. It’s been hard. It’s been great. It’s been ugly. It’s been supportive. It isolates. I think it actually covers the whole range of all the emotions you can imagine. You do that while the whole world is watching. It’s surreal to even try to argue.
FRED With the whole world watching, I would find myself in a position of being asked the question, and I would have to measure how I reacted so as not to offend. What’s bizarre is that you had to think in those terms about something so public.
Fred, you were a new media archetype to me – one of pure anger and grief and sorrow in the pursuit of justice. I had never seen such a person on TV or in the media before. What do you think of who you have become in the media?
FRED That’s when I’d find out we’re in court, and something would happen, and I was about to explode. What would eventually happen is that I could walk out of the courtroom, and there was a bevy of reporters and a place in the lobby where all the interviews would take place. Personally, I could say roughly what I was feeling at that moment. That was a very positive thing for me, because I didn’t have to hold it in and let it fester. I could leave it out. It was a good thing for me in the end.
KIM There was a tremendous amount of negativity that came with my dad speaking out because people were saying, “Oh, look how angry he is. Look, he’s always yelling. Look how angry he is. He calls people names.” There was a disconnect between that emotion and the realization that it was justified and that it was appropriate.
Every time your father was on TV crying and furious, you remembered that this is not entertainment. This is people’s life.
KIM But not everyone felt that way. It got so far removed from my brother and Nicole, and then the extensions from us, that it was about the killer. It was about Johnnie Cochran. It was about Marcia Clark. It was about everything but the victims. People felt they owned it.
FRED It wasn’t long ago in Arizona, I was speaking at a function. As I often do, I discuss the issue 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 Ron’s death for not arming my son with a gun he could have used to protect himself. This man went on to say that I was responsible for my son’s death because I didn’t believe that everyone was carrying a gun. Here’s this madman attributing his own beliefs to something that happened many years ago, just because it could.
With the rise since the true crime trial as a high-money entertainment genre, I wonder what you think about people taking advantage of it?
FRED I think the bottom line is that we talk about victimization of people, whether they’re sexually abused, murdered, and so on, and we make it a money-making system, ignoring the fact that people are being harmed, killed, and so on. That seems to be the less important issue, but making a profit seems more important.
I think we sometimes forget that in addition to the actual victim of a crime, there are a large number of additional victims, relatives, loved ones, friends, and so on, who are affected by someone’s crime and victimization. People seem to forget that everyone who has been harmed has a family, close people who have been victimized again.
I’m curious if you’ve seen any of the Johnny Depp-Amber Heard lawsuits, which similarly became a national celebrity obsession? Some believe the ruling marked the end of the #MeToo era and was actually a statement against women. I’m curious if you have an opinion on that.
FRED Well, I didn’t because I wasn’t paying attention.
KIM What I ran away from is watching two people who were in a toxic situation that the whole world was exposed to, and now everyone has something to say. Now go memes. People are laughed at and mocked. It became really grotesque for me. I think it does a disservice to victims and survivors who are actually considering coming forward with their accusations, be it a multimillionaire celebrity or their boss.
If we turn our minds back to Ron, can you tell me something about him that we may not know about him?
FRED Ron is on my mind literally every day. Every day. I still have pictures of him with me. I have pictures of him in my house. Not a day goes by that I don’t remember him or when something happens that doesn’t bring him and the things he did back to life, so to speak. It never goes away. He never leaves.
Where do you live now?
FRED I live in Arizona, outside of Phoenix. We’ve been here for many years. We have lived in our current house for 16 years. We have been in Arizona for about 24 years.
KIM I still live in the Los Angeles area.
Are you avoiding Brentwood?
KIM Yes. I haven’t been back to Brentwood [since the murder]† You must intentionally enter Brentwood. For the most part, you can’t stumble upon it by accident. I had two experiences there, once when we had to pick up a suit from my brother to bury him and clean up his apartment, and then once on a blind date. My blind date accidentally drove through Brentwood and I had an anxiety attack. It’s very easy for me to avoid Brentwood. It’s too painful.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.