Faye Resnick

Faye Resnick (née Faye Hutchison)^[1] is an American television personality and interior designer. She is best known for her involvement in the O.J. Simpson murder trial and for her appearances on The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills.^[2]

Early life

She was born July 3, 1957, one of four children born to a Spanish mother and an Italian father who abandoned the family when Resnick was very young.^[1] (an October 20, 1994 L.A. Times article states Faye's mother was Spanish-Italian and her stepfather was German).^[3] Resnick claims her father regularly beat her for wetting the bed when she was a child^[1] (the October 20, 1994 L.A. Times article indicates it was her stepfather who beat her, escalating from spankings when she was a youngster to "hideous beatings" as she matured).^[3]

According to Resnick, her mother ignored her husband's rampages. Her mother worked a day job as a nurse and was a budding journalist at night; she ultimately became a successful Latina columnist who wrote about holistic medicine. Her mother later became a Jehovah's Witness, making Faye's childhood "even more chaotic".^[3]

Reports the New York Times News Service: Faye "describes her mother as a religious fanatic whose predictions that Armageddon would come in 1975 prompted Ms. Resnick to rush into her first sexual encounter beforehand".^[4] Resnick - then Faye Hutchison - left home to live with an aunt in the Bay Area, where "she was crowned 1975 Maid of Hayward, a moment captured in a newspaper photograph showing her on the verge of tears. No apocalypse, it was a beginning of sorts because it gave what Resnick described as 'both an ego boost and some career ideas.'"^[3][5]

Resnick claims she attended law courses at a community college^[4] and later became the director of a John Robert Powers finishing and modeling school. However, the organization has no record of her employment.^[1]

Personal life

As of November 1994, Resnick had married and divorced three times and borne one daughter. As People reports:^[1]

"In the early '80s, after a failed first marriage, Resnick moved to London to pursue a modeling career and married Fadi Halabi, whom she calls an eccentric heir, and they had a daughter, Francesca, now 10. She eventually divorced Halabi, and in 1986 she moved to Los Angeles and married Resnick, an entrepreneur, the following year. (They divorced in 1991.)"

The Resnicks paid $1.3 million for a home formerly owned by the Walt Disney Company chairman, Michael D. Eisner, and Faye became active in activities associated with the Beverly Hills School District, where Francesca attended elementary school,^[3] such as the Beverly Hills P.T.A. During the 1990–91 academic year, she served on the board of the Beverly Hills Education Foundation; obtaining that position required a minimum donation of $1,000 and recognition as a school activist.^[3] As that time, reports David Margolick of the New York Times New Service, "She also became addicted to drugs".^[4]

Faye and Paul Resnick, a wealthy hotel refurbisher, divorced amicably in 1991.^[1][3] Faye's settlement netted her a payout of $194,000. His daughter Jackie stated in 1995: Faye "was the absolute worst of his [five] nightmare ex-wives. She put a great strain on our relationship."^[6]

Resnick, an admitted cocaine addict, attended multiple drug rehabilitation programs in the eight years preceding November 1994.^[1] Consequently, although she maintained that she was sober at the time her book was published, her past drug use led some to question her credibility and motives^[1][7][8] and the defense team in O.J. Simpson's murder trial to allege that Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were executed by drug dealers to whom Resnick owed money.^[7][8]

Friendship with Nicole Brown Simpson

Resnick and Nicole Brown Simpson first met in 1990. The two socialized with each other in and around Brentwood, Los Angeles and vacationed in Mexico together.^[1][9]

Resnick stayed for several days at Brown's condominium until entering drug rehabilitation four days before Brown and Brown's friend, waiter Ronald Goldman, were murdered.^[7][8] Faye's third husband, Paul Resnick, reported that a concerned Nicole called him in early June to report that "Faye was getting out of control" and abusing cocaine again. On June 9, 1994, Nicole and several other friends conducted an intervention and persuaded Faye to check into the Exodus Recovery Center in Marina Del Rey, California.^[1]

Books

Resnick collaborated on two books connected to the O.J. Simpson murder trial:

• Nicole Brown Simpson: The Private Diary of a Life Interrupted (1994, with gossip columnist for The National Enquirer, Mike Walker) ^[9] reveals information unflattering to Nicole Brown Simpson (and Resnick)^[10] and has been panned by some detractors as a roman à clef.^[11] The L.A. Times termed it "the first of the major O.J. Simpson books to hit the shelves" and noted it was a best-seller.^[12] New York Magazine dubbed it "the best-selling apotheosis of trashiness".^[6] The president of Dove Books, Michael A. Viner, said Resnick received a six-figure advance for her literary effort, which was rushed to stores in an unusually voluminous first press run of about 750,000 hardcover copies.^[3]
• Shattered: In the Eye of the Storm (1996, with Jeanne V. Bell) describes Resnick's experiences with the O.J. Simpson trial and her views of both opposing legal teams.^[13] The L.A. Times termed it "a New Age nonfiction work about women who suffer domestic violence and their journey toward recovery", and cited as her literary influence New Age author Marianne Williamson.^[14]

Media appearances

Resnick posed nude for Playboy magazine in March 1997, appearing on the cover of the American issue and in interior photos,^[15] and she has participated in multiple interviews about the photo spread.^[16]

She has also appeared in multiple episodes of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills as a friend of cast member Kyle Richards. In the same spirit as former The Real Housewives of D.C. castmember Michaele Salahi, Over the course of the series, she has alienated Housewives Camille Grammer and Brandi Glanville by engaging in aggressive arguments with them at dinner parties hosted by Grammer and Richards, respectively. Grammer's party - to which Faye accompanied Richards but was not invited by Grammer - aired in the episode 1.9, "The Dinner Party From Hell" (airdate 16 December 2010).^[17][18] Richards' party, which Kyle stated was organized to show off the dining room Faye had designed in Kyle's new Beverly Hills home, aired in the episode 3.7, "Oy, Faye!" (airdate 17 December 2012).^[19] The March 18, 2013 episode saw her confronting several of The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills in a failed effort to secure a permanent spot in the cast.

References

External links

• Faye Resnick Design
• http://www.usatoday.com/news/index/nns197.htm