Millions of viewers may be glued to The People v. O.J. Simpson week after week. But for Ron Goldman‘s close friend David Chokachi, the FX series isn’t exactly on the top of his watch list.
Although it’s been more than two decades since the crime and trial rocked the nation, the Baywatch star chooses to remember his pal’s friendship instead of the media circus that followed his death.
“We had this little pact of guys. We had just all arrived in L.A. and total idiots or whatever. We all hung around in Brentwood and we were friends with Nicole and we didn’t know. We were so naïve and innocent,” David shared with E! News’ Maria Menounos exclusively. “Ron was a good friend of ours and the day that he was murdered, we played softball together that morning and it happened that night.”
What happened later that evening is being brought up once again for a whole new generation on TV. For David, however, the series of events still seem unreal.
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“It was very bizarre. It was somewhat innocent what he was doing so we almost felt like it could have been any one of us who was maybe doing her a favor and showed up at the wrong place at the wrong time,” he confessed while supporting his newest film Black Files.
The events touched David so much that it forced the actor to move away from the famous city to escape the memories. While the departure only lasted about three months, he can’t help but still think about the people most affected by the tragic deaths.
“Mostly I feel for his family because he never had a chance to go on and have his family or anything like that and I just feel for his family,” he shared. “That has to be brutal because you’ve lost your son, your brother and there’s so much life that happened beyond when this happened 15-20 years ago.”
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Regardless of what is or isn’t shown on TV, David will remember Ron as a “good guy” who was “innocent and just being a young kid doing his thing.”
As for Nicole Brown Simpson, David believes her relationship with O.J. Simpson clearly wasn’t the best. Unfortunately, she just couldn’t escape.
“To her defense, she was trapped in a relationship that was dysfunctional,” David explained. “She needed people to hang out with that were normal.”
To hear more from our exclusive interview with David Chokachi, watch E! News tonight at 7 and 11 p.m. only on E!
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