Nicole Brown Simpson’s Children Sydney and Justin, Now 37 and 40, ‘Were Everything To Her,’ Says Joseph Perrulli (Exclusive)

NEED TO KNOW

• Joseph Perrulli says if Nicole Brown Simpson’s children, Sydney and Justin, happen upon his book: “I hope they see their mother in this beautiful light.”

• In the early days of Nicole’s separation from O.J, he says, “She wanted her kids to have a good relationship with their father.”

• Now, he writes,”My story may likely scratch at wounds that will never fully heal.”

Over 30 years after the brutal murder of Nicole Brown Simpson, her former lover, Joseph Perrulli says, “The world never got to know about this spiritual woman who was looking for peace and tranquility and happiness.”

“Her story was always overshadowed by O. J. Simpson and the trial,” says Perrulli, who hopes to change that by sharing the story of the woman he loved in an intimate new memoir, The Forgotten Briefcase. 

“I hope whoever knew and loved Nicole can feel her spirit in the words,” says Perrulli, “and if Nicole’s children (Sydney and Justin Simpson) ever see this book, I hope they see their mother in this beautiful light.”

Throughout the relationship, which lasted just a few months in 1992, he recalls, “She was a hyper-vigilant mother. The children were everything.”

He remembers an early dinner with the Jenners in that spring after Kris Jenner had introduced them when Nicole was in the early days of her separation from O.J. “She spoke openly about her marriage and she wanted her kids to have a good relationship with their father,” he says, “and I was just blown away with how willing she was to forgive and still love someone who had caused her so much pain.”

He recalls a conversation about her young daughter, Sydney. “I said, ‘that’s a beautiful name’ and she said, ‘I always knew I wanted to name my child Sydney,’” he recalls. “A dear friend of hers was a soap opera actress and the name of her character was Sydney.”

In those months, he recalls, “Nicole was so optimistic. She was getting her life back but she also alluded to difficulties in the divorce proceedings. She kept the details to herself. She kept a lot of things to herself.”

One night over dinner, Nicole told him O.J was abusive and beat her “really badly,” he says. “She completely broke down at the table and was shaking. ‘It kept coming,’ she said. The pain was so intense she blacked out. And then when she came to, she felt she really couldn’t talk about it because she knew it would hurt the children.”

“She wore it like armor,” says Perrulli, now 65. “She held everything close to the vest.”

Within a few months, the threat of O.J.’s menacing presence so unnerved Perrulli, he ended their relationship. “I sensed he was a man with a volatile temper and that he was uncontrollable.”

Before Christmas 1992, Perrulli and Nicole got together for a friendly lunch of her favorite spicy tuna hand rolls. She returned his copy of Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse. “She said, ‘Can you imagine how beautiful the world would be if everybody read Siddhartha?'” Perrulli remembers. “She said it had opened up a whole new world to her. I was touched the book had had such a profound effect on her like it did for me.”

She also gave him her favorite book, Celebrate the Sun, by James Kavanaugh, which she was reading to her kids. She inscribed it, “Merry Christmas. Always celebrate the sun.”

When Perrulli tried to return a photo album she’d given him (with pictures from their relationship), Nicole insisted he keep it. “And then I said goodbye and she drove away,” he recalls. “There was a side of me that wanted to run after her and say, ‘Hey, I really did love you.’”

It took more than three decades for him to go through the mementos, including the photo album and her letters, all documenting their relationship that he long stored in an old briefcase. Holding one of her letters, he shares a few lines: “Joseph, whatever becomes of this, I want to thank you for showing me I’m still capable of caring so deeply for someone. It was a feeling i thought was gone forever….Love, Me.”

“It was through rereading her words that I truly began to grieve her death,” says Perrulli, who began to transcribe her notes and his own journals in 2024 — writing which became the basis for the book.

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Now he wants to find a way to give the photo album to either Nicole’s sisters or to her children. “I hope to insure the mementos and photo album stay within her family and I hope to find a way to make that happen.”

As he writes in the book’s acknowledgments: “My story may likely scratch at wounds that will never fully heal. I speak directly to the Goldman and Brown families, and more specifically to Nicole’s children. Sydney and Justin. Should my book find it’s way to you … you may come to realize as I did when i rediscovered this briefcase that this story began writing itself in 1989 when I first met Nicole but I wasn’t prepared to tell it until now.”

If you are experiencing domestic violence, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or go to thehotline.org. All calls are toll-free and confidential. The hotline is available 24/7 in more than 170 languages.

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