Nicole Brown Simpson’s Sister Calls Out Kim Kardashian West For “Distasteful” O.J. Simpson Jokes on ‘SNL’

Tanya Brown is speaking out against Kim Kardashian West for joking about O.J. Simpson at her late sister Nicole Brown Simpson’s expense in her recent “distasteful” Saturday Night Live monologue.

Kardashian West made several jokes about Simpson, who her late father, attorney Rob Kardashian, defended the NFL star’s highly publicized double-murder trial. Simpson was ultimately acquitted of murdering his ex-wife, Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman, who were stabbed to death outside Brown Simpson’s home.

During the monologue, the Keeping Up With the Kardashians alum joked, “It’s because of [my father] that I met my first Black person. Want to take a stab in the dark at who it was?”

She added, “I know it’s sort of weird to remember the first Black person you met, but O.J. does leave a mark or several or none at all. I still don’t know.”

Brown told TMZ this week that it was “beyond inappropriate and insensitive” to portray her sister’s death as a joke, noting that it was “shocking” to watch and hear the NBC show’s studio audience laugh at the Simpson jokes.

She added that the jokes made her wonder how much the Kardashians actually cared about her sister. The two families were famously quite close in the past — Kardashian West’s mother, Kris Jenner, was close friends with Brown Simpson for years.

Although many viewers praised Kardashian West’s brutal monologue, plenty of viewers on Twitter also sympathized with Brown Simpson’s concerns. “I can understand why Nicole Brown’s sister was upset,” one user tweeted. “Kim’s mother was good friends with Nicole. Kim knew her. To make a joke about the stabbing murder of someone you and your family were supposed to be close to? That’s actually pretty cruel.”

Another viewer chimed in: “It was messed up. Totally inappropriate.”

Kardashian West has rarely commented publicly on her family’s ties to the Simpsons. “[O.J. and Nicole’s kids’] lives must be extremely hard to really go through that,” she said on a 2019 episode of Jonathan Cheban’s Foodgod podcast. “So I always try to keep to myself on that issue and not bring anything up for them.”

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