Curb Your Enthusiasm's Cheryl Hines and O.J. Simpson have a surprising ... trends now
Cheryl Hines is friends with plenty of Hollywood celebrities, but there's one figure she shares a particularly odd connection with: O.J. Simpson.
The late football star and murder suspect, who died on April 10 at 76 following a brief cancer battle, was the subject of endless press coverage following the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ron Goldman in 1994, preceding Simpson's trial for allegedly murdering the two, which began opening statements in January of 1995.
While speaking with Mayim Bialik on her Breakdown podcast on Tuesday, Hines revealed that she had been working at Los Angeles' Hotel-Intercontinental in 1995 during the course of the trial.
The hotel would serve as the site where the jury in the trial were sequestered until the trial wrapped up in October of 1995.
During that time, Hines was working as a bartender and waitress at the Hotel-Intercontinental, which was later renamed the Omni Los Angeles Hotel.
Cheryl Hines is friends with plenty of Hollywood celebrities, but there's one figure she shares a particularly odd connection with: O.J. Simpson; pictured April 18 in Hollywood
She revealed Tuesday on Mayim Bialik's Breakdown podcat that she worked; Simpson pictured at trial on December 8, 1994
Hines was a bartender and waitress at the Hotel-Intercontinental — later renamed the Omni Los Angeles Hotel — where jurors were sequestered on the fifth-floor suites; pictured in 2016
The juror sequestration, which lasted nearly a year, pushed many of the jury members to their limits, even though they could at least count on the hotel's luxury accommodations from its fifth-floor suites.
As part of the requirements to prevent them from being unduly influenced by information not presented at trial, jurors were prohibited from watching TV, reading newspapers or even making calls from their the hotel's phones, and they had a curfew each night, according to Newsweek.
Although jurors were permitted to leave the hotel, it was only allowed if a security guard accompanied them.
Jury selection began in October of 1994, and by the following month 12 jurors had been selected, along with an unusually large slate of 12 alternate jurors.
It proved to be a prudent move, as 10 members of the jury were dismissed over the course of the trial for various reasons, with only four of the original slate still on the jury by the time it delivered its verdict in late 1995.
Hines recalled being instructed to steer clear of the sequestered jurors — who she said began to go 'crazy' over time — during her stint at the Hotel-Intercontinental.
'I forget what floor they were on, but we weren't allowed to go to that floor, we weren't allowed to tell anybody they were there,' she told Bialik.
Despite having to steer clear of the jurors, she still saw evidence of their desperation as the trial — and their isolation — dragged on.
