EXCLUSIVE

CHRISTINE PRODY

THE STORY OF HOW

AN OBSESSED

OJ FAN

BECAME

(October 2nd, 2007 10:00AM PST)

BY ERIC LONGABARDI

Christine Prody is OJ Simpson’s girlfriend.  She’s been Simpson’s girlfriend for over 10 years.  A relationship nobody, at least nobody in the media seems to know much about.  How exactly did they meet? When? Where? and under what circumstances?

ERS News reports exclusively that Christine Prody, was much more than a random woman who happened to run into OJ Simpson by mere chance on the streets of Los Angeles.  Christine Prody was for all intensive purposes, a woman on a mission to be OJ Simpson’s girlfriend.  Prody, ERS can report exclusively use to hang out at Simpson’s former Brentwood estate, seeking only one thing – to meet OJ Simpson. She finally got her wish, but the story about how her obsession with OJ Simpson and her need to meet the famed football star and just aquitted former defendant has never been fully revealed before.

Miami based Associated Press reporter Curt Anderson reported last week of September that Prody met Simpson at the former Rockingham Estate in Brentwood, CA sometime shortly after Simpson was acquitted of the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.  NBC News reported, that it was a chance meeting, with the two exchanging numbers when they saw other on the streets in their cars near Simpson’s former home. The AP gets closer to the truth when it quotes an interview that Prody’s mother. Kathy Bellmore, gave the Minneapolis Star Tribune in 1999:

“It's not clear how they got together, but Prody's mother has said in past media interviews that her daughter wanted to meet Simpson and occasionally went by his house. " At first I thought it was a passing thing, a fantasy," Prody's mother Cathy Bellmore told the Star Tribune newspaper in 1999. "All it did was alienate her from me. She wouldn't call me for a week."

The AP story, NBC and Prody’s mother had it partly correct. Simpson did meet Prody at his former estate in Brentwood. That’s all that the three had right, the rest as the AP said is not “clear” until now.

ERS News can reveal for the first time, Prody was much more than an occasional “OJ” Rockingham estate tourist, unlike the hordes of fans and gawkers, who had made Simpson’s Rockingham estate home a macabre “tourist” stop after Simpson’s acquittal of murder changes in 1995.   She was in fact what most people would call an ‘obsessed fan”.

Christine Prody may not have revealed the full story, even to her own mother. This reporter met Christine Prody, outside the Rockingham estate, before she met OJ Simpson.   Prody, at the time was more than an “occasional” passer by at the Simpson house.  Prody was a well-known visitor to Simpson’s home after he was set free from jail in October of 2005. She was so well know that Simpson’s security team, headed at the time by then bodyguard Tom Gleason, knew her well. 

Gleason had been OJ’s bodyguard since his release from jail in 1995.  Gleason would later go on to write a novel related to his experience working for Simpson.

Gleason was well known to this reporter at the time of the Simpson release. I was, at the time, an “OJ” producer for a national news program. Although Tom was a nice guy and we got along great, we both had our jobs to do. One day, I even mixed it up with Gleason and his bodyguard crew on the street outside the famed “Rockingham gate”. Early that morning Simpson and a camera crew were shooting a segment, long after the media horde had disappeared from the house, for a video OJ tried to sell after his acquittal in the criminal trial. The video was an attempt by Simpson to explain and give his version of the events of June 12, 1994 and his innocence to the world. The incident was captured on tape by CNNs' cameraman that morning and broadcast to the world that day as a “major news event”. Me and the CNN cameraman have remained professional friends ever since. I spent the entire day doing on air national live reports for the CBS program I worked for at the time. The fact that I’ve never been “on air” reporter didn’t seem to matter to my bosses at CBS.

Prody was well known to OJ bodyguard Tom Gleason. One morning upon arriving at work at Simpson’s house. Gleason parked his car across the street and was walking onto the estate, when he saw Prody. Tom was less than friendly to her and told her in less than polite terms to go away. In fact, this reporter remembers he called her some less than flattering names. I was intrigued as to why Tom would be so hostile towards this woman. I asked him about her and why he didn’t seem to like her. Tom was a nice guy, he did his job but he did it professionally and I had talked to Tom many times over the months at OJ's house and elsewhere. Gleason told me that this woman was someone they had to keep their eye on all the time. She would constantly try and get into the estate when the gate opened and was consistently harassing and bothering the security people in her unending attempts to gain access somehow to OJ Simpson so she could meet him. There were at the time, many people who would ‘hang out’ and profess their desire to meet OJ Simpson. The difference was they Prody stood out from the crowd because of her uncanny resemblance to OJ Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole and her extreme intensity in wanting to do so. This particular morning, after Gleason had attempted to get Prody to leave the area near OJ’s house, I spoke with Prody outside Rockingham.

At the time I didn’t know her name, I don’t believe she ever gave it to me, but if she did I had no reason to remember it.  What I did remember is that this woman expressed her obsessive desire to meet Simpson.  She also explained that she had just recently moved out to Los Angeles from Minneapolis and was  living in her car.  She wanted to know if I might be able to offer her a place to stay.  Although I didn’t and couldn’t do so, her story always stuck with me.  At the time I chalked it up to being just another crazed OJ groupie and I had seen many of them by that point.  But none looked like Christine Prody and she stood out.

Sometime later in late 2005 or early 2006 Christine Prody was first reported to be OJ’s new girlfriend. Prody’s face jumped out at me; it was the same woman I had met outside Rockingham.  At the Simpson estate sometime later I remember asking Tom how the woman he apparently despised and knew so well as being a royal pain had come to meet Simpson.  Tom told me Simpson had the occasion to see her outside the house and he wanted to meet her.  History shows that’s what happened.  Having met Christine Prody on the street outside Rockingham, before she met OJ Simpson, it’s no surprise that Simpson would have noticed her.

When Simpson moved to Florida Prody went with him.  Their relationship has been in and out of the headlines for ten years. Simpson and Prody have had their own run-ins with the law since moving to Florida.  On four separate occasions the couple has had their problems and relationship trust into the headlines.  Prody even sold an interview to the National Enquirer claiming Simpson has confessed to her that he had killed his ex-wife and Ron Goldman in 1994.  Nonetheless, Prody and Simpson’s relationship somehow continues to endure.

Weeks ago when Simpson was arrested and charged with a litany of crimes related to the now infamous “robbery” of memorabilia collectors in a Las Vegas hotel room, Prody was once again there to support Simpson.  The media spotlight is on Prody once again. 

Prody and Simpson’s relationship took another twist recently when the New York Daily News reported that Simpson has been accused of threatening to kill a man named Janos Gonzalez, who worked at Simpson’s Florida home as a gardener.  Simpson, the paper reported had accused the gardener of having a sexual encounter with Prody.  The Daily News cited court records of the arrest of Prody and the gardener for pot possession.  ERS has reviewed those same records and they show the two do at the very least know each other as they were arrested together.

ERS has reviewed additional Miami-Dade court records that show that OJ gardener Janos Gonzalez also has been convicted of selling and possessing cocaine more than once in the past.

As the media storm surrounding Simpson and latest legal troubles in Las Vegas have gone into “media circus” overdrive again, Christine Prody and her relationship with Simpson will no doubt get even more attention.