Kim Kardashian with father Robert Kardashian

Need some tips to keep the Kardashians straight?

Rob Jr., Kim, Khloe, Kourtney Kardashian, and their mother Kim Jenner sometimes mention the girl’s father Robert Kardashian on the E! reality show Keeping Up With the Kardashian. Who was he? The answer is pretty fascinating.

Robert Kardashian married flight attendant Kris Houghton (Kristen Mary Houghton) in 1978. He earned a law degree from University of San Diego and practiced law for about ten years before moving into the music production business. His marriage to Kris ended in 1989, and on the show Kourtney has claimed that her father loved her mother until his death, in 2003 from esophageal cancer.

Kardashian did practice law for 20 years, and had let his law license go inactive when his old friend O.J. Simpson was accused of killing his ex-wife Nicole Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman in 1994. O.J. was an old friend of Robert’s, going back to the 1970s when they lived together and started a yogurt company called Juice, Inc. O.J. stayed at Kardashian’s home after Nicole and Ron were murdered, and Robert quickly became entwined in the case. Not only did Robert let O.J. stay at his house, he also read a letter on behalf of O.J. the day he failed to turn himself in on murder charges. At 11 a.m. on June 17, 1994, Robert Kardashian read to television cameras what many believed was O.J.’s suicide note. Here’s an excerpt:

“I’ve had a great life, great friends. Please think of the real O.J. and not this lost person.”

He then reactivated his law license and went to work on O.J.’s legal dream team, sitting beside  him throughout the media blitz trial. Robert Kardashian’s association with O.J. Simpson further alienated his ex-wife, then Kris, then married to athlete Bruce Jenner. On the E! show Kris reveals that she was a friend of Nicole Brown Simpson and was on the opposite side of the Simpson case. Later, Robert expressed doubts about O.J.’s innocence. Although O.J. was acquitted of the Simpson-Goldman murders has since been sentenced to 33 years for a 2007 armed robbery in Las Vegas.

Kim and her father Robert Kardashian taken when she was 14 years old

Robert Kardashian died on September 30, 2003, eight weeks after being diagnosed with esophageal cancer.

Last year on the fifth anniversary of her father’s death Kim Kardashian posted the black and white photo at the top of this post and wrote this on her website:

Today [September 30] is the day my father passed away

five years ago. I can’t even believe it has been that long.

It seems like our lives have changed so much in these past

five years. Every tough thing that would come our way, it seemed my dad was watching over us and protecting us and somehow we would make it through and come out even stronger!

There isn’t a day that goes by where I don’t think about him or wish he were here. I often have really real dreams about him, where I wake up so mad it was just a dream. I miss him so much!

Today is a hard day, but my reason for this post is to honor my dad! He was the most amazing dad, husband, son, brother and my best friend!

I love you Dad!

Photos: kimkardashian.celebuzz.com
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