O. J. Simpson

EARLY LIFE 

Orenthal James "O. J." Simpson was born July 9, 1947 in San Francisco, California.

Simpson in 1990

OJ Simpson's father was a well known drag queen, who died of aids in 1986.

FOOTBALL CAREER 

O. J. Simpson originally attained stardom as a running back at the collegiate and professional levels.

He played professionally in the NFL for 11 seasons, primarily with the Buffalo Bills from 1969 to 1977, but also for the San Francisco 49ers from 1978 to 1979.

In 1973 O. J. Simpson became the first player in NFL history to rush for more than 2,000 yards in a single season.

In 1975, People magazine described Simpson as "the first black athlete to become a bona fide lovable media superstar".

Simpson holds the record for the single season yards-per-game average, which stands at 143.1.

Simpson was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1983 and the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1985.

Simpson acquired the nickname "Juice" as a play on "O.J.", a common abbreviation for "orange juice".

ACTING CAREER 

After retiring from football, Simpson began new careers in acting and football broadcasting.

Simpson in 1990 visiting American troops during lead-up to the first Gulf War

Simpson played T.D. Parker in the television series 1st & Ten: The Championship from 1986 to 1991.

O.J. Simpson was at one stage going to be the Terminator, but was cut because the director couldn't imagine him as a ruthless killer.

In 1995 he won the Razzie Award for Worst Supporting Actor for his role in Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Insult.

MARRIAGE  

Simpson met Nicole Brown in 1977, while she was working as a waitress at the nightclub, The Daisy. Although still married to his first wife, Marguerite, Simpson began dating Brown. Simpson and Marguerite divorced in March 1979.

Simpson and Brown were married on February 2, 1985 and they had two children, Sydney and Justin.

Simpson, Nicole and Austen Feb 1986 at Honolulu Hawaii. Photo by Alan Light,

Simpson pleaded no contest to spousal abuse in 1989 and Brown filed for divorce on February 25, 1992, citing irreconcilable differences as the reason. The pair attempted to reconcile the following year.

LEGAL HISTORY

In 1993 on Seinfeld, Elaine wanted her boyfriend to change his name from a serial killer’s (Joel Rifkin) to something normal. Reading a football almanac, she suggests O.J.

Nicole Brown Simpson and her waiter friend Ron Goldman were found stabbed to death on June 12, 1994 outside Nicole's condominium in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles.

Simpson was a person of interest in their murders and on June 17 he became the object of a low-speed pursuit in a white Ford Bronco SUV; TV stations interrupted coverage of the 1994 NBA Finals to broadcast the incident live.

Domino's sold as many pizzas during OJ Simpson's car chase as it did on Superbowl Sunday that year.

He was tried for the murder of his wife and Ronald Goldman in 1994. The criminal court in Los Angeles, California found that Simpson was not guilty of those murders the following year.

When the prosecution had Simpson try on the leather glove whose wearer had committed the murder,  he struggled to pull the evidence comfortably over his hand. That led defense lawyer Johnnie Cochran to utter the iconic line, "If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit" — a turning point for the defense in the lengthy trial.

It is now believed that the reason OJ Simpson's gloves did not fit during his trial was because he stopped taking his arthritis medication two weeks before hand causing his hands to swell.

During OJ Simpson's verdict announcement trading on the New York Stock Exchange dropped 41% and that so much work stopped across the world to watch, an estimated $480 million was lost in productivity.

Russian President Boris Yeltsin's first words to President Bill Clinton upon meeting in 1995 were, "Do you think O.J. did it?"

In 1997, Simpson was found liable for their wrongful deaths in a civil trial brought by the two victims' families, but to date he has paid little of the $33.5 million judgment.

A man bought and melted down O.J. Simpson's Player of the Year trophy to make pins for people who donated to battered women's shelters.

Simpson gained further notoriety in late 2006 when he wrote a book titled If I Did It. The book, in which Simpson allegedly puts forth a "hypothetical" description of murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman, was withdrawn by the publisher just before its release.

The book was later released by the Goldman family and renamed If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer, with the word "If" greatly reduced in size to make the title appear to read I Did It: Confessions of the Killer.

In September 2007, Simpson was arrested in Las Vegas and charged with the felonies of armed robbery and kidnapping. He was convicted on all counts and sentenced to 33 years imprisonment, with a minimum of nine years without parole.

Simpson served his sentence at the Lovelock Correctional Center in Lovelock, Nevada before being released from prison on October 1, 2017.

Simpson paid less than 1% of the $33.5 million civil judgment against him for the wrongful death of Ron Goldman.

Simpson died of prostate cancer on April 10, 2024, aged 76.