Kim Kardashian recalls testifying at murder trial as a teenager

Kim Kardashian has opened up about testifying in the murder trial of her former boyfriend’s mother when she was just a teenager.

The Skims founder stood by her then-boyfriend, TJ Jackson, after his mother, Dee Dee Jackson, was found dead in a swimming pool at her boyfriend Don Bohana’s home in August 1994. In 1998, Bohana was convicted of second-degree murder and sentenced to 15 years to life in prison.

The Keeping Up with the Kardashians alum recently detailed her “hectic” upbringing in an interview with Vogue Italia, in which she reflected on her father Robert Kardashian’s high-profile legal career and her own court experience as a teenager. Kardashian’s late father served as the defense lawyer to OJ Simpson during his 1995 murder trial.

“If you think about it, as a teenager, especially in those mid 90’s years it was hectic,” Kardashian said. “My dad was going through all those trials and it was pretty intense in my life. My boyfriend’s mother whom I was really close with was murdered in 1994 and I had to be part of that trial.”

“I had to testify and was there every day with my boyfriend,” she added. “I was just 14, you know.”

Kardashian dated TJ Jackson, the son of singer Tito Jackson and nephew of Michael Jackson, from 1994 to 1996. In August 1994, TJ’s mother, Dee Dee Jackson, was found dead in Bohana’s swimming pool at his Los Angeles home in Ladera Heights. Bohana was charged with second-degree murder in March 1997, with the trial beginning in June 1998.

The reality star was 14 years old at the time of the murder. The trial took place four years later, when she was 18 and reportedly no longer dating TJ. “To have that experience at such a young age was insane,” Kardashian said. “And it was also back-to-back with the OJ trial, there was just a lot of layers there.”

Kardashian, who is involved in the criminal justice reform movement, has previously opened up about the impact the OJ Simpson trial had on her family at the time. In a 2020 sit-down interview with David Letterman for his Netflix show, My Next Guest Needs No Introduction, Kardashian explained how her parents were on opposing sides during the murder trial for the deaths of Simpson’s ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman.

While the late Robert Sr served as one of the NFL star’s defense attorneys, her mother Kris Jenner had been close friends with Nicole Brown Simpson. “It was dinner time, and we were all sitting down, and I answered the phone. It was a call from jail, and it was OJ, and I handed my mom the phone because he wanted to speak to her,” Kardashian told Letterman. “And I just remember them getting into it.”

“My mom was extremely vocal on her feelings – she believed that her friend was murdered by him and that was really traumatising for her,” she continued. “And then we’d go to my dad’s house and it was a whole other situation there.”

“We didn’t really know what to believe or whose side to take as kids, because we didn’t want to hurt one of our parents’ feelings,” Kardashian said.

In 1995, OJ Simpson was found not guilty by a jury for the double-murders of Brown Simpson and Goldman. He was deemed liable for the deaths in a 1997 civil case brought by the two victims’ families and was ordered to pay $33.5m in punitive and compensatory damages.