Nicole Brown Simpson’s sisters hope film sheds light on domestic violence

Nicole Brown Simpson’s sisters hope an upcoming documentary on the victim who was battered and stalked by her ex-husband OJ Simpson sheds new light on resources for domestic violence victims, they said on Wednesday.

“I asked Nicole all the wrong questions,” Denise Brown told CBS Mornings. “I said, ‘Why? Why are you with him?’ And those are the questions you don’t want to ask a victim of domestic violence. You want to be supportive. You want to listen.”

Denise, Dominique and Tanya Brown spoke to the news show before Saturday night’s premiere of the four-part documentary series The Life and Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson.

The Lifetime docuseries arrives 30 years after Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman were stabbed to death outside her home in Los Angeles.

Officials charged OJ Simpson with murder in the double killings, but in the so-called “trial of the century”, a jury acquitted him. He was later found liable for both deaths in a civil case.

Numerous documentaries have focused on the specifics of the crime, its aftermath and the implications it had on the career of Simpson, a successful pro football player and actor. But the Life and Murder of Nicole Brown Simpson seeks to tell the story of the woman OJ Simpson abused before all but confessing to her murder.

“Let’s humanize Nicole,” Denise Brown said to CBS in reference to the series’ purpose. “Let’s let Nicole’s voice be heard. Let’s tell her story – let’s tell it to the world. Let people get to know who Nicole really was.”

According to Lifetime, 50 documentary participants offer one of the most complete accounts yet about the life and death at 35 of Nicole Brown Simpson, a mother of two.

“She was a beach girl, and then she had children, and she loved her children,” Dominique Brown said to CBS. “Going to recitals, doing things with the kids and the family and all of that – I think that ease came back to her, and I love that.

“We’d like to remember Nicole smiling.”

The sisters said they hoped learning more about her would motivate viewers to volunteer at domestic violence shelters, and to be mindful of the shame felt by many survivors of such abuse.

Brown sisters said it was a grueling process making the series a reality.

“I walked away very angry because I had no idea what a horrible person he was to her,” Tanya Brown said of OJ Simpson.

OJ Simpson died of cancer on 10 April. He was 76 and had only paid a fraction of the more than $33m that he had been ordered to pay to the families of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman over their killings.