Nicole Brown Simpson Said 'I'd Rather Die' - Her Ex Finally Speaks

The Briefcase He Hid for 33 Years

Joseph Perrulli dated Nicole Brown Simpson in 1992, after her separation from O.J. Simpson. He fell in love with her. And then he left - because he did not believe he could survive being near the man who was always watching. For more than three decades, he kept their photographs, letters, and journals locked in a briefcase he said he deliberately tried to forget. He has opened it now, and written a book.

‘She was far different than what had been portrayed - more spiritual and more down-to-earth,’ Perrulli, now 65, told People in an interview published this week to promote his memoir, ‘The Forgotten Briefcase.’ ‘I felt it was incumbent upon me to tell her story.’

Their relationship began when mutual friend Kris Jenner introduced them in early 1992, shortly after Nicole separated from the former NFL star. Before their first dinner together, Caitlyn Jenner - then known as Bruce Jenner - took Perrulli aside. ‘She’s wonderful,’ Jenner told him, according to People. ‘Her only problem is O.J.’

‘I Didn’t Think I Could Live My Life Like This’

Despite the warning, Perrulli said he became, in his own words, ‘extremely enchanted’ with Nicole. They began dating. What he describes next is a relationship conducted under constant surveillance.

A neighbor told Nicole that O.J. had been spotted hiding in the bushes outside her rental home in Brentwood late one night while Perrulli was visiting. During a weekend trip to Laguna Beach months later, someone at a family barbecue walked up to Perrulli and warned him O.J. was in town and on his way. ‘I didn’t think I could live my life like this, feeling like this man’s lurking everywhere I go,’ Perrulli recalled to People.

During one dinner together, Nicole told him she had been beaten so badly she had blacked out. She told him she had prayed it would never happen again - and that it had. ‘Through tears, she said, “I’d rather die than go back to that man,”’ Perrulli recalled. He said he was, by his own admission, ‘woefully unprepared’ for how to respond. ‘I knew nothing about domestic violence,’ he said.

The Christmas Party

Perrulli ended the relationship after the Laguna Beach weekend, packing everything they had shared into the briefcase. He had a nightmare that night that they drove off a cliff together and died. He did not see Nicole again until a Christmas Eve party at the Jenners’ home in December 1993. She was back with O.J.

When Perrulli went to the bar for a glass of champagne, O.J. appeared behind him. ‘He placed his champagne flute down and stared at me, and said, “It’s only an illusion,”’ Perrulli recalled. Then O.J. turned and walked out.

Nicole Brown Simpson was murdered on June 12, 1994. O.J. Simpson was acquitted of criminal charges in 1995 and later found liable for the deaths of Nicole and her friend Ron Goldman in a 1997 civil trial. O.J. Simpson died in April 2024.

What Was Left Behind

Perrulli said when he finally reopened the briefcase in 2024, reading Nicole’s letters felt, in his words, ‘like I had traveled back in time.’ He spent the following years transcribing her correspondence alongside his own journals - work that became the foundation of ‘The Forgotten Briefcase.’

‘The story was always about O.J. Simpson,’ he told People. ‘But I wanted to share the story of Nicole. As I pieced it back together, I saw her coming back to life.’

The book is presented as Perrulli’s personal account of events he witnessed and conversations Nicole had with him directly. Details are drawn from his own recollections and the mementos preserved in the briefcase, not from independent third-party documentation.

References: Nicole Brown Simpson’s Ex Speaks on Ending Their Romance Over O.J. Simpson | Nicole Brown Simpson’s Ex Breaks Silence on Ending Their Romance Over ‘Unhinged’ O.J. Simpson | Nicole Brown Simpson Former Lover