OJ Simpson has passed away. He was 76 years old and he had been battling cancer for several years. All too often, OJ Simpson was used as a punchline, when really, he was at the center of one of the most despicable moments in history of American criminal law: his acquittal in the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. Then in 2008, he was convicted of completely separate crimes related to armed robbery. He was sentenced to 33 years in prison and he was paroled in 2017.
O.J. Simpson, arguably one of the most controversial figures in modern American history, has died at the age of 76. According to a statement from his family on X (formerly Twitter,) the Hall of Fame football player, legendary broadcaster, self-deprecating actor, convicted felon, and accused — but ultimately, acquitted — murderer died at 76 years old on April 10.
“On April 10th, our father, Orenthal James Simpson, succumbed to his battle with cancer. He was surrounded by his children and grandchildren. During this time of transition, his family asks that you please respect their wishes for privacy and grace,” the post on Simpson’s account reads.
Once a celebrated personality, heralded for his record-breaking contributions to college and professional football, Simpson’s triumphs and exploits on the gridiron have long been overshadowed by his 1994 arrest for the slashing murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman.
Simpson was detained on June 17, 1994, following a prolonged, low-speed police chase that was carried live on television stations all around the world. Crowds formed over highway overpasses to get a glimpse of Simpson, who was infamously chased in a white Ford Bronco being driven by his friend and former teammate Al Cowlings.
Simpson was tried for the murders over 11 months in what many of the legal experts of the time dubbed “The Trial of the Century.” His legal team boasted powerhouse attorneys Robert Shapiro and the late Johnnie Cochran, Robert Kardashian, and F. Lee Bailey. On Oct. 3, 1995, jurors returned “not guilty” verdicts on both counts of murder. It is estimated that 100 million people in the United States alone tuned in to either watch or listen to the stunning verdict.
“Self-deprecating actor” – let’s not. It’s not all that complicated. I feel sorry for his kids and that’s about it. I hope Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman’s families are doing well and they’re in my thoughts today.
Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, UPPA/Photoshot.
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- O.J. SIMPSON Former American Footballer (Recently acquitted by an American court of the murder of his wife) COMPULSORY CREDIT: Talking Sport/Photoshot Photo UIW 011516/A-36 14.05.1996,Image: 504159910, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: World Rights – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries call Photoshot Global HQ – London + 44 (0)20 7421 6000 , also New York Office Tel : + 1 646-429-8731 and Hamburg Office Tel +49 (0)40 530 240 5959, Model Release: no, Credit line: Photoshot / Avalon
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- 19481, MIAMI, FLORIDA – January 2008. OJ Simpson’s latest police mugshot after he was detained for violating the terms of his probation. Simpson allegedly called one of his co-defendants in his Las Vagas robbery case, a contravention of his bail terms. He was freed on bail in September 2007 following his arrest after he and several friends were said to have burst into a Las Vegas hotel room and robbed two sports memorabillia dealers at gunpoint. Photograph: Supplied by PacificCoastNews.com. UK OFFICE: +44 131 557 7760/7761/7762, USA: +1 310 261 9676 “Disclaimer: BWP Media Inc and their brand Pacific Coast News does not claim any Copyright or License in the attached material. Any downloading fees charged by BWP Media Inc and their brand Pacific Coast News are for its services only, and do not, nor are they intended to convey to the user any Copyright or License in the material. By publishing this material, the user expressly agrees to indemnify and to hold BWP Media Inc and their brand Pacific Coast News harmless from any claims, demands or causes of action arising out of or connected in any way with user’s publication of the material.”,Image: 523252255, License: Rights-managed, Restrictions: WORLD RIGHTS, DIRECT SALES ONLY UNLESS STATED OTHERWISE IN CAPTION – Fee Payable Upon Reproduction – For queries contact Avalon.red – sales@avalon.red London: +44 (0) 20 7421 6000 Los Angeles: +1 (310) 822 0419 Berlin: +49 (0) 30 76 212 251 Madrid: +34 91 533 4289, Model Release: no, Credit line: PacificCoastNews.com / Avalon
Oh well.
I feel for his family and I’ll be thinking of the Brown and Goldman families.
My sympathy for his family and I really wonder if he had CTE from his football days.
Yeah frontal lobe damage can definitely lead to loss of self-control and anger issues.
Remembering him as a murderer more than a football player or “actor”. Sad for his family but no real feelings beyond that.
I just googled and OJ is on record saying that he thought he had CTE. He said he had at least 2 concussions, maybe more. The Dr who discovered the disease didn’t examine him but thought OJ most likely had it.
I have always thought OJ’s son Jason was killer based on some footage from the time where he was clearly hysterical and OJ was telling him to shut up. He has a diagnosed rage disorder, a history or stabbing people, including almost killing an ex-girlfriend, and Nicole Brown Simpson and the kids were supposed to dine at the restaurant where he worked the night she was killed. She changed her plans and that may have enraged him.
@ Truthiness–would not surprise me at all if he had serious bran damage. I mean, we know that players nowadays suffer from CTEs but back in OJ’s day, the protective gear, especially the helmets, were nowhere near as effective.
And that doesn’t mean that OJ isn’t a freaking monster–he is.
Because we know that plenty of players get CTE(s) and don’t go on to commit murder. But we would be remiss to not acknowledge the possible connection between OJ’s well-documented fits of rage/abuse and potential frontal lobe damage. There have been countless studies that prove the strong connection between loss of impulse control and that particular portion of the brain.
@Megan, I thought that too. It just fit the details that were reported at the time.
I hope this brings peace and closure to everyone impacted by these crimes.
I barely know much about CTE other than the damage can affect controls in the brain that lead to violent tendencies.
Now then, so many of the violent football players who have killed (and often times died by suicide) didn’t live to an old age. Nicole and Ron were killed in 1994…if OJ killed them, due, in part, to CTE, wouldn’t his behavior have gotten worse over the past 30 years? Because he doesn’t seem to have been more violent after those deaths. I don’t see abnormal violent tendencies in OJ caused by CTE so severe that he would violently kill two people.
He did have a standard pattern of narcissism and abusive behavior but it seems like the garden variety kind, not the caused by brain damage kind.
Frank Gifford lived to 84 and his brain scan showed a horrifying amount of CTE so some guys live longer and are nonviolent. Human bodies are unique, the hits they sustain are different and CTE isn’t a simple case where you go from 0 to Aaron Hernandez. The Dr who first discovered the disease said he’d bet his medical degree that OJ had it and OJ agreed with him so I’d defer to them.
I feel the worst for guys who get CTE without life changing wealth, colleges and the NFL use their bodies and then spit them out.
@Truthiness Thank you for the added information!
I hope that it helps the Brown and Goldman families to know that this man no longer walks the earth when their loved ones don’t. That trial was a travesty.
+1
I hope they do a brain scan for CTE. The data could be the only positive legacy he leaves
This 👆! Someone needs to make this happen.
Me too – but I think the people who make money off of sports like football would very much prefer it didn’t.
Whew! What a relief! Good riddance. If you were a kid at the time like me, I was in elementary school, when this trial was all over the media like a spectacle it was so scary to watch adults treat this horror like entertainment. Then he was just free, for decades! He is burning in hell now where he belongs
CTE damage wouldn’t excuse what he did, but yes, it would be helpful for the sake of research.
It wouldn’t excuse it at all, but it could potentially explain it. It could be he would have done the same thing either way, and that we will never know, but it would be helpful to learn more about the condition. Correlation doesn’t equal causation – even if he did have CTE, plenty of other people also have CTE that don’t go on to murder people. But for the sake of others that currently have it or are at risk for developing it, discovering more is important.
30 years too late.
@Amber, You said it before I got too.
For real. #bitchbye
Anyways. That’s how I feel about it. I may get ripped to shreds for saying this but I literally shrugged when I read the Apple alert of this news. I was in 4th grade when his trial was going down and remember seeing footage of the Bronco chase on the news. I didn’t understand it then, but I’ve listened to podcasts as an adult that have described the significance of the trial, the acquittal etc. What absolute horror Nicole must have felt making several domestic abuse calls to the police, only to have them show up and ASK FOR HIS AUTOGRAPH. The stabbings were so violent, first responders describe she was almost decapitated. He robbed his children of their mother. He took another innocent life who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. He got to live into his 70s and die surrounded by his family. Anyways. Good riddance.
I agree with you-and I was a young adult during the trial. I wish the Brown and Goldman families, and his poor children, peace.
Same here. Peace to them. Their lives have been hell for 30 years.
I basically shrugged as well. I wish peace for the Browns and Goldmans.
I 100% support your comment. I was just out of college and watched the entire OJ trial live, and was sickened and dumbfounded over the utter failure of the Justice system. This man committed a double, brutal homicide and got away with it. I pray the Brown and Goldman families finally feel some peace today.
Hope Simpson rots in hell as that is what he deserves. Not sorry about feeling that way.
Bye!
Ok.
I truly hope that he is getting the judgment he should have gotten here on earth.
He did spend almost 10 years in prison for his other crimes. So at least he got a taste of justice. Even if it wasn’t for the murders.
He was jailed for 33 years and only did 9 before being released?? WHAT……????
Cancer hmm-
Hope it was painful.
I hope he confessed to his kids before he died.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_I_Did_It:_Confessions_of_the_Killer
If the coffin fits,
quickly bury that shit.
I hope that this gives some closure to the Brown and Goldman families.
I wonder if there were any deathbed confessions. We may never know.
When Apple News shared this with me, I was surprised; but not sad about it.
I was a kid when he was on trial and remember watching the verdict of the trial in class, live. I was so happy and relieved for him (because I was young and didn’t want to think about how someone could actually have killed two innocent people – didn’t understand then).
When I was in high school, I played volleyball and basketball and one of my teammates father’s played with OJ when they won the SuperBowl. I asked him if he thought OJ had done it and he immediately said, “Yes, without a doubt.” And that right there told me everything I needed to know. Someone who played alongside him and knew him personally saying they got the verdict wrong and this person was capable of murdering two innocent people in cold blood. I will never forget that.
Thinking about the people his choice and life affected and sending them love.
I think it’s so weird that as kids, we all watched the verdict in school. Like, it’s crazy that we had televisions broadcasting that shit in a classroom setting.
And I do remember a really strong divide in opinion along racial lines–very different reactions.
For me it was the shoes, before people were all youtube crime experts. One thing criminals always forget were their shoes tying them to crimes.
He wore expensive italian shoes they had prints of. And it was the Enquirer that had the photos that proved he wore them in the past at NFL games.
He did it and he planned it pretty well. And I think Ron Goldman was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nicole was his target.
It was also the birth of DNA testing and the jury didn’t understand it the way they do today.
I also will forever think that Robert Kardashian had evidence in the golf bag he took out of OJ’s home and walked right past the cops with it. Maybe bloody clothes,or the knife, IDK. But he had something in there.
A few years ago I listened to a few very well researched podcasts about the whole thing, including one by Goldman’s sister who spoke with jurors, and though I always believed he did it, I left those fully convinced he was guilty. May the loved ones of the victims feel peace.
He got some ‘splanning to do to Ron and Nicole on the other side. If he is on their side that is. He may have gone to a lower hotter place.
TMZ is reporting that the Goldmans are gearing up to go after his estate. May they get every nickel out of it.
I am probably the minority on this topic but its my opinion and I have a right to it. I have never believed he murdered his wife. I do believe OJ was physically abusing her however I have always believed he knew who may have killed her. I think for whatever reason he didn’t want to reveal it. There is information that was given that makes me come to this conclusion. Of my prayers goes out to all the families that was involved with their loss on all sides.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/If_I_Did_It:_Confessions_of_the_Killer
I work in health care and at the time there were black patients who thought he was framed.
The fact that OJ is the go to and only example for white people when they want to bring up injustice and unfairness says it all.
Occums Razor means OJ totes did it but he had money for a great defense and they sowed enough reasonable doubt to warrant a not guilty verdict and that’s not the same as being innocent.
The robbery conviction, especially the sentencing, was as big of a joke though and was clearly a round about way to punish OJ for the murders he was acquitted of.
Hope the families are at peace. It’s a pity that they never saw a penny of the civil judgment but it pays to be rich in this country. As for OJ it’s too bad he was filled with such loathing and self hate and so desperate for white approval and validation that he blew up his life. So it was fitting that he was totally ostracized by them and held up (in their minds) as the ultimate symbol of injustice.
I think you could argue that his wealth, fame, and white adjacency (lived in a rich white neighborhood, mostly associated with white people etc) afforded him a comfortable level of protection that the average black man would never get. How many times did Nicole call the LAPD only for them to show up, laugh it off, and walk away without doing a damn thing? Pretty sure that if that was a poor, average, unknown black man married to a white woman the reaction by law enforcement would have been very different.
Nikiik – 💯 I think this particular case remains so significant in the minds of white folks because it is one of the few times that they truly experienced being on the wrong side of privilege and saw the ways in which it can allow someone to literally get away with murder. It was a tragedy and a travesty of justice, but the only thing that made it really unique was the fact that the murderer was Black and the victims were white. I wish for peace for the families of the victims (including Nicole’s children)..
Check out The Onion for it’s take, lol.
Kato gave the perfect response when asked to comment on OJ’s death – sending love to the Simpson kids with the acknowledgment that it is always hard to lose a father, hoping the Goldman family has closure, and reminding the world to remember Nicole’s bright light. Well said on all levels.
I was a lawyer (not criminal) at the time of the trial and was sickened that all the partners who loved joking about defense attorney Racehorse Haynes’ many wild Texas murder trials were suddenly incensed that this particular rich man was acquitted. I left that firm soon thereafter.