Actor Kato Kaelin has stated that he felt like everything was looking up for his career when he began living in a guest house on O.J. Simpson’s estate in the early 1990s via People.
It has been noted that was until Simpson was arrested in 1994 following the killings of his ex-wife — and Kaelin’s close friend — Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman.
Kaelin, who was home on the night of the killings, became a witness in the former NFL star’s 11-month murder trial. His involvement in the trial made him famous, the actor tells PEOPLE in an exclusive interview following Simpson’s death earlier in April.
However, Kaelin laments in the new interview, “I became famous for all the wrong reasons.”
“I was getting auditions,” the actor and television host says. “Then the trial happened. Would I have been a star? I don’t know. I doubt it. But maybe I would have been a working actor.”
The Wisconsin native had moved to Los Angeles to become an actor before meeting Nicole during an Aspen vacation with their mutual friend and General Hospital actor Grant Cramer.
Kaelin had continued to grow even closer to Nicole after she began dating one of his friends. Eventually, she invited him to stay on her and O.J. ‘s property in an extra guest house, where he even began helping take care of their children Sydney and Justin Simpson.
“I was never the babysitter, but if Nicole needed a helping hand, of course I’d help,” Kaelin recalls. “And they trusted me 100 percent with Sydney and Justin, and they were terrific kids. So that’s how it all started, me being kind of a friend to them.”
