What was O.J. Simpson’s relationship with the Kardashian family?

You can’t turn around these days without bumping into Kim Kardashian. Or if not La Kim, then another member, however tangential, to this Hollywood family who seem to have their fingers on all the right connections.

While this über-connected family may be ruled today by Kris Jenner, with branches that include Kanye West, Caitlyn Jenner, Travis Barker, Tristan Thompson, Blac Chyna, and Travis Scott, the root of this mighty tree is Robert Kardashian.

The future attorney met OJ Simpson in 1967 when they were students at USC and became close friends. Simpson was best man at Kardashian and Kris Houghton’s wedding in 1978, becoming close family friends to them and their four children.

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When OJ Simpson’s ex wife Nicole Brown was murdered in June of 1994, it was at the Kardashian residence that the Juice hid from the media. When OJ decided to run in that famous white Ford Bronco chase, it was Kardashian who read the infamous “suicide note” from Simpson to the media.

Once the spotlight found the Kardashians in that 1995 televised real-life drama, it never let them go. And as they warmed to it, the family created drama of their own.

Robert Kardashian passed away in September 2003 from esophageal cancer at the age of 59. His ex-wife Kris remarried Olympic Gold Medallist Bruce Jenner and later began their own type of televised drama when they invited cameras into their home for one of the most-watched “reality tv” series in the world, Keeping Up With The Kardashians. It made household names out of daughters Kim, Khloé, and Kourtney, documenting their trials and tribulations as Kim’s infamous sex tape and Bruce’s sex-change transition to Caitlyn.

While it may be that our televisions, newspapers, and social media feeds are filled to the brim with Kardashian news, it is difficult to believe that they were once an anonymous family in Los Angeles. And we only know of them because of OJ Simpson.