Source: Entertainment Weekly
Thirty years after Nicole Brown Simpson’s murder, her ex-boyfriend’s own near-death experience inspired him to break his silence on their lost romance.
Joseph Perrulli has published The Forgotten Briefcase, a memoir reflecting on his relationship with Nicole, whom he dated for several months in 1992, immediately following her separation from O.J. Simpson.
The NFL legend was still a presence in his estranged wife’s life, however, and was often “lurking” around the new couple, recalled Perrulli. Ultimately, he was so unsettled by Simpson, he broke things off with Nicole. “I didn’t admit to being afraid for not only her life but my own,” Perrulli told PEOPLE.
Concern for their safety weighed so heavily on his mind, it seeped into his subconscious. One night, Perrulli had a dream that he and Nicole drove off a cliff and died. “When I woke up,” he recalled, “I collected all the things we’d shared — the books, journals, cards, and letters — and I put it away in a briefcase, which I purposely tried to forget for the better part of 33 years.”
Immediately following Nicole’s murder in 1994, Perrulli turned to the briefcase filled with mementos, but it was gone.
Years later, the subsequent owner of his Brentwood home found it and returned the time capsule. “It was too raw at first,” recalled Perrulli, who stashed the briefcase away in a closet and “never really dealt with it.”
It wasn’t until 2024 that he finally found the courage to look through its sentimental contents. “I sat on the stairs for probably four hours and read her notes, and re-read the copy of Siddhartha that I’d given her, and it felt like it’d traveled back in time — and I began to truly grieve her death,” Perrulli revealed to PEOPLE.
As he coped, he transcribed Nicole’s love letters and his own 1992 journal entries detailing their romance. Then one day, an ischemic stroke halted his project.
“Out of nowhere, my left side of my body completely shut down. I couldn’t feel anything. I couldn’t move,” recounted Perrulli. “I was close to dying in the ambulance and then I heard my wife’s voice and became aware again.”
When he awoke, his mind darted back to the briefcase. “I thought of Nicole and I realized I had to see this through,” Perrulli revealed. “That there was a bigger purpose to share her story… And I remember thinking, if I have to type this with one hand, because I couldn’t move my left arm at all, I would see it through no matter what.”
The Forgotten Briefcase, released on June 11, is an intimate peek into the final chapter of Nicole’s life, when she ended her abusive marriage and embarked on a new romance.
The last time Perrulli saw her, at a Christmas Eve party in 1993, Nicole had reconciled with O.J. Simpson. Six months later, she and Ron Goldman were both stabbed to death, a double murder that Simpson was acquitted of in 1995.
“The story was always about O.J. Simpson, but I wanted to share the story of Nicole,” Perrulli explained to PEOPLE. “As I pieced it back together, I saw her coming back to life.”
