Businesswoman, reality TV star and aspiring lawyer Kim Kardashian (Los Angeles, 45) always gets what she wants, and this time was no exception: she has in her hands her late father’s Bible that she tried to buy before it was put up for auction. Robert Kardashian gave this sacred book to former American football player and actor OJ Simpson, also deceased, the day after he was arrested for the murder of his ex-wife Nicole and her lover Ronald Goldman. “OJ, this book will help you. God loves you and will speak to you in His words. Read this book every day. God has a definite plan for your life. You are His child and He will use you again. I love you and God loves you,” he wrote in the dedication he wrote in 1994, when he served as one of his attorneys in the high-profile trial that acquitted him. The owner of the SKIMS company made an offer of $15,000 before this relic was put up for sale, but the executor of Simpson’s estate, Malcolm LaVergne, rejected it because the item had already been contracted to be auctioned by Goldin Auctions. Ultimately, that Bible sold last March for just over $80,000.
It has now been learned that the richest and most famous of the Kardashian sisters was the one who anonymously purchased her father’s Bible. It was Kim Kardashian herself who revealed it in her most recent episode reality family THE Kardashian. As seen in the chapter, while he is in the kitchen with his seven-year-old daughter Chicago, he opens a package from which he extracts the Bible, bound in brown leather, which he had not yet seen since purchasing it. “If anyone’s wondering who won the OJ Simpson auction, you better believe it was me,” he says to the cameras. Furthermore, it seems that it was Malcom LaVergne who leaked the emails in which she expressed her desire to buy the religious book directly from him and avoid an offer that, in the end, turned out to be expensive – although the actress had initially said she was willing to pay up to $30,000, she offered more than double that.
The family heirloom at the auction, organized by the house that offers memorabilia of American athletes, was part of the belongings that LaVergne is selling to pay off the debts left by the NFL player after his death last year from prostate cancer. A debt that amounts, among other things, up to 36 million euros, due to the murder trial.
As she examines the pages, Kardashian realizes something: This was the personal Bible of her father, who died of esophageal cancer in 2003, and his initials are engraved in gold letters on the cover. He notices something else and says, “This is not my father’s handwriting. So it must be OJ’s.” Meanwhile the little daughter doesn’t understand what was happening, so the mother has to explain part of the story: “He (Simpson) went to prison. It’s a long story, I’ll tell you when you’re older.” An episode that did not land him in prison, it would only in 2008, when Simpson was sentenced to nine years in prison, but for another robbery and kidnapping case.
But the story of the Bible, one of Robert Kardashian’s few remaining personal items, continues. Kim Kardashian actually bought it as a gift for her sister Khloé, who she surprised during the Easter celebration at her older sister Kourtney’s house. After receiving it, Khloé says that “things happened after her death that prevented her children from receiving many of her things,” though she doesn’t provide further details.
For a few years now, Kim Kardashian has dedicated herself to following in her father’s footsteps to become a lawyer. But recently, the entrepreneur shared a video on Instagram, where she has 354 million followers, in which she cried uncontrollably after learning on Nov. 7 that she had failed the California exam that allowed her to practice. He made it clear that he will keep trying until he succeeds: “I’ve shared much of this journey with you, and this summer I’ve been documenting the last two weeks of studying: the good times, the bad times, and everything in between. On November 7, I found out I didn’t pass the bar exam. It was disappointing, but it wasn’t the end. This dream means too much to me to give it up, so I’ll keep studying, I’ll keep learning, and I’ll keep working until I achieve it.”
