Kim Kardashian recalls testifying at her boyfriend's mother's murder trial when she was a teenager

Kim Kardashian has spoken out about her testimony at her former boyfriend's mother's murder trial when she was just a teenager.

The Skims founder stood by her then-boyfriend TJ Jackson after her mother, Dee Dee Jackson, was found dead in a 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 a former student recently detailed her “hectic” upbringing in an interview with Vogue Italy, in which she reflects on her father Robert Kardashian's high-profile legal career and her own legal experience as a teenager. Kardashian's late father served as OJ Simpson's defense attorney during his 1995 murder trial.

“If you think about it, as a teenager, especially in the mid-'90s, it was very hectic,” Kardashian said. “My father was going through all these ordeals and it was quite intense in my life. My boyfriend's mother, who I was very close to, was murdered in 1994 and I had to participate in that trial.

“I had to testify and I was there every day with my boyfriend,” she added. “I was only 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 the Bohana swimming pool at her home in Los Angeles to Ladera Heights. Bohana was charged with second degree murder in March 1997 and the trial began in June 1998.

The reality TV star was 14 at the time of the murder. The trial took place four years later, when she was 18 and no longer dating TJ. “Going through this experience at such a young age was insane,” Kardashian said. “And it was also following the OJ trial, there were just a lot of layers there.”

Kardashian, who is involved in the criminal justice reform movement, has previously spoken about the impact the OJ Simpson trial had on her family at the time. In a 2020 interview with David Letterman for his Netflix show, My next guest needs no introduction, Kardashian opened up about how her parents were on opposite 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 was one of the NFL star's defense attorneys, his mother Kris Jenner was close friends with Nicole Brown Simpson. “It was dinner time, we were all sitting down and I answered the phone. It was a call from prison, and it was OJ, and I handed the phone to my mom because he wanted to talk to her,” Kardashian told Letterman. “And I just remember them going for it.”

“My mother made her feelings very clear – she believed her friend had been murdered by him and it was really traumatic for her,” she continued. “And then we would go to my dad’s house and it was a whole different situation there.”

“We didn't really know what to believe or what side to take when we were kids, because we didn't want to hurt either of our parents,” Kardashian said.

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