Paula Barbieri says her romance with O.J. Simpson ended soon after his acquittal, when he seemed more interested in how much money he could get for photographs of them together.
"It was all of a sudden, `Well, they'll pay lots of money for pictures of you and I together,' " Barbieri told Diane Sawyer on ABC's "PrimeTime Live" Wednesday. "And then the next thing I know he's coming, and he's got the photographer with him."Rather than a quiet, `Let's get back to who you and I are, and let's get to know each other again,' " she said of their reunion at her Florida home about two weeks after the Oct. 3 acquittal. "It was a realization for me that he was going to that lifestyle."
Rumors flew the weekend after the trial that Simpson and Barbieri planned to marry in the Dominican Republic. But when Sawyer asked Barbieri if she still had a relationship with Simpson, her response was brief: "No, I don't," she said. "None of any kind."
Barbieri refused to say how she told Simpson their three-year relationship was over: "I think that's really private."
Sawyer said the interview was unsolicited and Barbieri had called ABC.
Sitting curled up in a chair, and dressed all in black with a large cross around her neck, the 28-year-old model and actress said she stayed celibate and waited for Simpson.
After he was acquitted in the slayings of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman, Barbieri said Simpson called her on his cellular phone as he traveled home on the freeway.
And again he called from a homecoming party at his estate, Barbieri said, expressing his love and "all the wonderful things." But she said she began to become disillusioned when she found out Simpson had sold photographs of the celebration to a tabloid.
Barbieri said she never doubted Simpson's innocence, and she would have left him if he had ever hit her.
"I can't answer for Nicole, but I know for me if he ever laid a hand on me I would not be there in the morning."