O.J. Simpson Will 'Hate' New ESPN Documentary O.J.: Made in America Because He 'Doesn’t Like to Look Bad,' Says Friend

O.J. Simpson "loves to be loved," his longtime friend, Ron Shipp, tells PEOPLE. "He does. That guy just loves it.

"He doesn’t like to look bad," he says about Simpson, who was acquitted in 1995 for the double murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ron Goldman, and is now serving up to 33 years in prison for armed robbery and other crimes after trying to reclaim items he says belonged to him.

If Simpson ever gets a chance to see ESPN's new 30 for 30 documentary, O.J.: Made in America, which goes in-depth about the NFL star's life and the psychology that drives him, "I think he is going to hate it," says Shipp.

"He is totally exposed in this thing and a lot of it is his own doing," says Shipp, a former LAPD officer who has known Simpson since he was 16. "It pulls the curtain back."

Shipp is featured in the new documentary, O.J.: Made in America, which has been airing this week on ESPN.

Drawing from rare footage of Simpson and almost 70 interviews with Simpson's friends, family, colleagues, and key figures in the so-called Trial of the Century, Peabody and Emmy-award winning director Ezra Edelman tells the story of the NFL star's rise to fame and his steep fall, including details of the Las Vegas heist that landed him behind bars for up to 33 years.

It also details the history of the crackling racial tension in Los Angeles between African Americans, the LAPD and the criminal justice system, which came to a head during and after his trial, which former Simpson attorney Carl Douglas tells PEOPLE, "helps to explain the verdict."

A Relationship Frays Over Domestic Abuse

Shipp spent a lot of time with Simpson and Brown, who divorced Simpson in 1992. He says his views on his longtime friend began to change in 1989, when she told him her husband had beaten her on New Year's Eve that year.

Since Shipp was a part-time instructor at the Los Angeles Police Academy who taught classes on how officers should deal with domestic abuse calls, Brown had asked him to come to the house she shared with Simpson to discuss his lesson plans, hoping that he could help her and her husband.

"She had me meet with O.J. the following day because he was out of the house and she said she was not letting him come back in the house," he says.

Shipp says he was in disbelief that Brown said Simpson had hit her. "Here I am talking to O.J. and Nicole about domestic violence, which I thought was unbelievable. This thing was rocking my world. He was my hero."

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When Shipp began asking him about physically abusing Brown, he says Simpson "was about to cry. I thought, 'I have never seen him like this.'"

Simpson, he says, was upset because he thought the incident, which led Brown to call 911 and became public, would hurt his career. "He was saying, 'Oh, I am going to lose money. I'm going to lose my Hertz commercials.'

"He was like, 'Oh, I don’t want to lose this and I don’t want to lose that and I don’t know what to do,'" says Shipp.

"I was like, 'O.J., you admit you had a problem, you lost it, you go get help and counseling and then you start helping out some women's groups with batterers. I said, 'You will be helping people. You will change people's lives.'"

"He said, 'You really think so?' He said, 'You know Ron, that's really a good idea.'"

"So I'm thinking, 'I'm making headway with this guy,'" says Shipp.

The next day, Simpson told Shipp he had talked to someone who advised him not to follow his advice. "Whoever he talked to changed his mind," he says. "He wouldn’t tell me who it was but he said, 'No, I'm not doing that. I mean, they said I was crazy to do that.'"

Shipp was shocked to hear this, since "I actually got him to admit that he had battered Nicole," he says.

Testifying Against His Friend: 'I Still Love The Guy'

Shipp testified against Simpson during the 1995 murder trial because, he said during a heated exchange with Simpson attorney Carl Douglas, "I'm doing this for my conscience and my peace of mind. I will not have the blood of Nicole on Ron Shipp. I can sleep at night, unlike a lot of others."

Shipp testified that Simpson confided to him shortly after Nicole Brown Simpson was found dead that he had had dreams of killing his former wife. On cross-examination, Douglas attacked him, calling him a liar.

When asked how close he really was to Simpson, Shipp said, "If you want me to really explain it, I guess you can say I was like everybody else, one of his servants. I did police stuff for him all the time. I ran license plates, that's what it was."

During his testimony, he also said, "I still love the guy, but I don't know. I mean, this is a weird situation I'm sitting here in."

Now, he says, "I almost cried at that moment, but this is the crazy part about that. When I said I loved him, he looked at me with the most wonderful smile. I thought, 'How could you smile at me? I'm testifying against you,'" says Shipp.

"That was the only time he looked into my eyes. The rest of the time, he wouldn’t lock eyes with me," he adds.

In Simpson's 1997 wrongful death civil trial, which found him liable of the murders of Brown and Goldman and required him to pay the victims' families $33 million, Shipp points out that he was shocked when Simpson admitted in depositions that Shipp had told him to become an advocate for anti-domestic violence efforts.

"I was shocked that he said that because he has lied about so much that I have said," says Shipp.

Shipp's new memoir, The Heart Behind the Badge, debuted May 1.

Shipp says he thinks the documentary is well-done and eye-opening, and that even he learned things from watching it that surprised him.

"I was like, 'Wow, this is not the guy that I fell in love with.'"