PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Thirty years ago, as women’s rights advocates worked to pass the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, domestic violence was still something of a hushed topic.

Then Nicole Brown Simpson’s death forced it into the spotlight. Americans riveted by the murder investigation of superstar ex-husband O.J. Simpson, who died Wednesday at 76, heard startling and painful details of the abuse she said she suffered at his hands.

“We must have had 20 media trucks lined up on Hollywood Boulevard to talk to us,” said Patti Giggans, executive director of the Los Angeles-based nonprofit Peace Over Violence, who said interest in the issue exploded overnight.

“Because it was O.J. — he’s famous, an athlete, handsome, everybody loved O.J. — we started to have conversations about what goes on in the mind of a batterer,” Giggans said. “We were able to maintain that conversation throughout that two-year period (of the case). I think it changed the movement.”