OJ Simpson, the once-beloved NFL superstar and Hollywood actor who was acquitted in a 1995 murder trial that gripped the nation, died at his Las Vegas home Wednesday. He was 76.
Simpson — whose fame, fortune and legacy were forever changed despite being cleared by a Los Angeles jury of killing his ex-wife and her male friend in what was dubbed the “trial of the century” — had been battling prostate cancer.
“On April 10th, our father, Orenthal James Simpson, succumbed to his battle with cancer,” his family announced on social media Thursday. “He was surrounded by his children and grandchildren.”
Nicknamed “The Juice,” Simpson was one of the most popular athletes of the late 1960s and 1970s.
A Heisman Trophy winner during his days at the University of Southern California, the running back played 11 NFL seasons — nine of them with the Buffalo Bills. He won four NFL rushing titles, rushed for 11,236 yards over his career, scored 76 touchdowns, and featured in five Pro Bowls.
“I was part of the history of the game,” Simpson once said of his Hall of Fame career. “If I did nothing else in my life, I’d made my mark.”
Simpson quickly parlayed his NFL success into show business achievements, such as appearing in the acclaimed TV miniseries “Roots” and films such as “The Naked Gun.” He also famously became a pitch man for brands such as Hertz rental cars.
But athletic popularity and Hollywood fame came crashing down when he was charged with the horrific slashing murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman in Los Angeles in 1994.
Live TV coverage of his arrest after a slow-speed chase in his white Ford Bronco became infamous.
His murder trial the following year was a tabloid and media sensation that mesmerized the country, as the former football star’s “Dream Team” of high-profile lawyers tried to refute a seemingly damning stack of evidence.
In addition to courtroom bulldogs Robert Shapiro and Johnnie Cochran, the team included Robert Kardashian — whose daughter Kim later parlayed her own sex-tape infamy into a reality television empire.
The blockbuster trial became the stuff of legend when Simpson struggled to try on a bloodstained glove, causing defense attorney Cochran to exclaim, “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.”
Simpson’s acquittal on Oct. 3, 1995, drew a mix of outrage, shock and celebration across the country.
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“I don’t think most of America believes I did it,” Simpson told the New York Times in 1995 — a week after the jury delivered the verdict. “I’ve gotten thousands of letters and telegrams from people supporting me.”
Despite avoiding jail for murder, a separate civil trial jury found him liable in 1997 for the deaths and ordered him to pay $33.5 million to Brown and Goldman’s families.
Simpson’s Heisman Trophy was auctioned off to raise cash, People reported at the time. The award and other belongings raked in almost $500,000, which went to the Goldman family.
Simpson struggled in the years following his acquittal.
In addition to auctioning off the spoils of his previous careers, he struggled to pay taxes and defaulted on the mortgage on his longtime home.
His attempts to make money off books and TV interviews surrounding the murders were also squashed in court following an outcry from the victims’ families.
Goldman’s family famously won the rights to Simpson’s manuscript about the case, which was titled, “If I Did It.”
“It helped me get out of debt and secure my homestead,” Simpson told the Associated Press at the time of the $880,000 advance he got for the book.
“It’s all blood money, and unfortunately I had to join the jackals,” he added.
When the book hit shelves, the Goldmans retitled it “If I Did It: Confessions of a Killer” and put the “if” in a very small font.
“The only thing I have to say is it’s just further reminder of Ron being gone all these years,” Goldman’s father, Fred Goldman, told NBC News on Thursday in the wake of Simpson’s death.
“It’s no great loss to the world. It’s a further reminder of Ron’s being gone.”
In 2007, still shadowed by the wrongful death judgment, Simpson led five men he barely knew into an armed confrontation with two sports memorabilia dealers in a cramped Las Vegas hotel room.
He insisted at the time that the videotaped confrontation was simply him trying to retrieve memorabilia that was rightfully his.
A jury later convicted Simpson, then age 61, of armed robbery and other felonies — leading him to serve nine years in a Nevada prison before being released on parole in October 2017.
“I’ve basically spent a conflict-free life, you know,” Simpson, whose parole ended in 2021, said at the time.
Born on July 9, 1947, in San Francisco, Orenthal James Simpson was raised in government-subsidized housing projects.
He attended City College of San Francisco and the University of Southern California after graduating high school.
Simpson married his first wife, Marguerite Whitley, in 1967. He won the Heisman Trophy the following year and accepted it the same day his first child, Arnelle, was born.
He went on to have two sons, Jason and Aaren, with his first wife. One of those sons, Aaren, drowned in 1979.
Simpson divorced Marguerite that same year before he went on to marry waitress Nicole Brown in 1985. Brown would later accuse him of vicious spousal abuse that included verbal taunts and physical beatings.
The couple had two children, Justin and Sydney, before they divorced in 1992 — two years before her slaying.
Public fascination with Simpson never faded over the years — even after his acquittal in Brown and Goldman’s slayings.
In recent years, he made occasional appearances on social media — including a bizarre video he shared last year about convicted wife-killer Alex Murdaugh.
Prior to his death, Simpson had been undergoing treatment in Sin City after his prostate cancer diagnosis.
The 6-foot-1 former athlete had sparked health concerns when he was seen limping while out in Las Vegas last November.
Just two months before his death, Simpson was pictured looking frail but assured the public he was in good health in a brief social media video.
Simpson is survived by four of his children from his two marriages.
