Why OJ Simpson Said 'I'm Sorry' While Looking at Dead Nicole Brown's Casket: "I Loved..."

NFL star OJ Simpson broke down with grief over his murdered ex-wife Nicole Brown's casket in 1994 and uttered the words, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I loved you too much," the Tampa Bay Times reported. However, his emotions masked his dominating nature and the troubled marriage the ex-couple shared. In 1977, Brown, a budding model, met the football star while working as a waitress at a nightclub in Beverly Hills at the age of 18. Friends described their relationship as rocky from the start. “It was a very passionate, a very volatile, a very obsessive relationship. On both sides,” actress Cathy Lee Crosby told The Baltimore Sun. 

The aspiring photographer moved in with Simpson because he “required that she be with him,” the court documents revealed later. Given that the football player was still married to his first wife, Marguerite Whitley, in 1977, Brown jeopardized her future by dropping out of college to pursue the whirlwind relationship. According to Today, Simpson divorced Whitley in 1979, and by February 2, 1985, he wed Brown after seven years of courtship. “Looking back on her wedding video, Nicole was so elated; beyond belief. She was so giddy as she was surrounded by family in her master suite," the late model's youngest sister, Tanya Brown, recounted with a sentimental tribute post on Instagram in 2022. 

The couple welcomed two children, a daughter named Sydney, on October 17th, 1985, and a son named Justin, on August 6th, 1988. According to her youngest sister, Nicole was an excellent mother. “She was a mom, first and foremost. Her kids were her life. She always wanted to make sure they were having fun and being kids,” Tanya told People. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Bill Prestridge, Brown's teacher from Dana Hills High School, said "Nicole was bubbly, always happy and smiling." But all that changed when  Simpson was shockingly arrested for domestic abuse for the first time on January 1st, 1989. 

The couple's marriage had been crumbling behind closed doors, the assault was documented the same year by Denis Brown, Nicole's sister. “She called me in 1989, and said, ‘Denise, will you take pictures of me?’” she said. “And I just went, ‘Whoa!’” In 1992 Brown filed for a divorce citing irreconcilable differences, the ex-couple remained toxically in touch while trying to co-parent their children. Merely eight months after the divorce Brown, 35, and her companion Ron Goldman were tragically stabbed outside of Brown's Brentwood, Los Angeles, house on June 12, 1994. 

Simpson was found not guilty in 1995 despite being charged with the murders of both her and Goldman. However, a civil lawsuit in 1997 found him responsible for their deaths. The 76-year-old disgraced NFL star passed away on 10th April 2024 in Las Vegas Nevada after a prolonged battle with prostate cancer. Nicole's sisters acknowledged that they were pleased to hear of his passing, "I think the whole world knew how I felt about him," Denise said while appearing on Today. "On that day, I was happy. When I heard the news, I was like, 'Oh my God, finally.'" "It was very overwhelming," Dominique concluded. "It was very complicated, very confusing, and at the same time so, so sad. I was really emotional."