Oj Simpson: Tanya Brown’s Dark Revelation and Norm Macdonald’s Near-Encounters
On Feb. 23 Tanya Brown posted a photograph on Instagram and wrote that “the only thing I have of my sister, Nicole is this diamond earring that she was slaughtered in, ” a disclosure that has renewed public attention to the decades-old case involving oj simpson. At the same time, archival accounts of Norm Macdonald’s long-running public feud with Simpson underscore how private outreach and public mockery have intersected around the same figure.
Oj Simpson and Norm Macdonald's near-encounters
Norm Macdonald’s name has been closely linked with O. J. Simpson for years. After Simpson’s 1995 acquittal on charges in the killings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, Macdonald — then the Weekend Update host on Saturday Night Live — quipped, “It is finally official, murder is legal in the state of California. ” Those jokes were persistent enough that Macdonald says he was warned by NBC higher-ups, and a long-standing rumor tied his exit from the show to NBC president Don Ohlmeyer’s friendship with Simpson. A ten-and-a-half-minute compilation of Macdonald’s O. J. jokes exists as a record of how frequently he returned to the subject.
Despite years of derision, Macdonald and Simpson came close to meeting on several occasions. One encounter was accidental: Macdonald was golfing with Kato Kaelin, a witness from Simpson’s murder trial, and decided against approaching Simpson because Kaelin was uneasy. Kaelin later recalled, “The girl I was with came to find me and said, ‘You won’t believe who’s here. O. J. Simpson is golfing. He’s hitting on me. ’ In my head I thought, ‘That’s so O. J. ’”
Macdonald also tried to secure interviews with Simpson. When he hosted a sports show on Comedy Central in 2011, he reached out with the condition that the murders would be off-limits; why that outreach failed is unclear in the provided context. Years later, on his podcast Norm Macdonald Live, Macdonald said he believed he had lined up Simpson until a lawyer asked whether he was “the Norm Macdonald that was on NBC, ” and relayed that “O. J. said you were a little tough. ”
In a twist, Macdonald softened publicly toward Simpson in 2019, calling him “the greatest rusher in the history of the NFL” on a panel and adding, “Maybe I was the greatest rusher to judgment. ” What makes this notable is the movement from sustained public mockery to a comment that prompted a private reply: Lori Jo Hoekstra revealed in 2024 that Macdonald received a text after that appearance thanking him and inviting him to play golf, and that the text was from Simpson.
Tanya Brown’s Instagram and the diamond earring
Tanya Brown, one of Nicole Brown Simpson’s three sisters, posted a photograph of Nicole on her refrigerator on Monday, Feb. 23, the image held by a magnet that reads “blessed. ” In the photo a large diamond earring is visible in Nicole’s ear. Tanya captioned the image bluntly: “The only thing I have of my sister, Nicole is this diamond earring that she was slaughtered in. ”
The post drew an outpouring of sympathy online. Commenters wrote messages such as, “So senseless. I’m so sorry to this day, ” and “I can’t even imagine the heartbreak of everything your family has had to endure. ” Other responses included: “I’m so sorry that it’s all you have of nicole.. you deserve to have more … she should have been able to grow old.. been able to watch her children grow… been able to enjoy grandkids. I’m so sorry Tanya!” and “Still a beautiful lady. She has grandkids she’ll never meet. ” Many replies featured praying-hands emojis.
Nicole Brown Simpson’s death and the legal aftermath
Nicole Brown Simpson was 35 when she and her 25-year-old friend Ron Goldman were stabbed to death on the night of June 12, 1994 and found outside her Los Angeles home. O. J. Simpson was charged with two counts of first-degree murder and faced a highly publicized criminal trial in 1995 in which he was ultimately acquitted. In 1997 a civil court found him liable for the deaths and ordered him to pay $33. 5 million in damages.
Although he never served time for those murders, Simpson later served a nine-year sentence for kidnapping and armed robbery and was released on parole in 2017. He died of cancer in April 2024 at age 76.
Tanya Brown’s remembrance, the 1994 sequence and activism
Tanya has marked the anniversary of June 12 publicly before. In a 2025 Instagram post she said, “Tonight marks 31 years. June 12, 1994, started like any other Sunday at the Brown house, ” describing a family preparing for a dance recital she chose not to attend. She recalled that her mother had been on the phone with Nicole about forgotten glasses that Ron Goldman had found and offered to return that night; her mother told Nicole she could pick them up the next day on her run, but Ron brought them that night. Because of that decision, Tanya wrote, Ron is “a hero in my eyes. ”
That remembrance is tied to ongoing advocacy: Tanya said the post was meant to raise awareness about domestic violence and to explain why she continues to hold an annual candlelight vigil “for Nicole, for Ron, for every survivor, for those we’ve lost, and for those still trapped in silence and fear. ”
The posts and recollections bring together personal loss, legal history and episodes of public mockery and outreach, underscoring how the Simpson case continues to reverberate in private grief and public memory.
