Easily the most controversial athlete of our time, former NFL star, actor, and broadcaster Orenthal James Simpson, has died at age 76, shortly following a diagnosis of prostate cancer. However, despite his successful career playing American football, O.J. Simpson will forever be remembered as the face of the most controversial trial in American history, and how quickly it became the most famous news story of the 1990s. What troubling things occurred in his life that led to his now tainted legacy?
OJ Simpson was born on July 9, 1947, in San Francisco California, to Eunice Simpson, the administrator of a local hospital, and his father, Jimmy Lee Simpson, who worked as a banker. Simpson didn’t have an easy childhood. He developed rickets, which is a condition that causes people to have weak or small muscles or bones. As a young man, it was Simpson’s dream to become a football player, enrolling and attending the University of Southern California. Simpson played college football for the USC Trojans.
After graduating, Simpson’s football career took off, he joined the NFL in 1969, becoming an all-star player for the Buffalo Bills. He was in the position of running back, and for the next 11 years, had an incredibly successful career. In 1973, O.J. Simpson made history when he won the AP Most Valuable Player Award, for becoming the first NFL player in history to rush for at least 2,000 yards in a season. He helped lead the Buffalo Bills to a 9-5 record. Over the course of his 135 career games, Simpson gained 11,236 receiving yards, 2,142 receiving yards, and 990 kick return yards. He scored 76 touchdowns overall, and even today, continues to be regarded as one of the greatest running backs of all time, before he finally retired in 1979.
After his retirement from the NFL, Simpson chose to pursue careers in acting and sports broadcasting. One of his most memorable film appearances was his role as Detective Nordberg in the Naked Gun film series, and went on to broadcast many other NFL games. However, despite the success of his career, his family life wasn’t as functional. In 1967, he married a woman named Marguerite L. Whitley, and had three children with her, Arnelle, Jason, and Aaren, who tragically died at a young age, causing his first marriage to deteriorate and end in divorce.
That’s when Simpson met a woman named Nicole Brown, while she was working as a waitress in a nightclub in Beverly Hills, five years after his retirement from his football career. After Simpson divorced his first wife, the two married and had two children, Sydney and Justin. While their marriage spanned 7 years, it wasn’t the best one. They had many arguments, and Nicole filed claims of domestic and spousal abuse. Ultimately, in 1992, the two divorced, as they cited “irreconcilable differences.” OJ and Nicole’s falling out would set the stage for the tragedy that was to come.
On June 12, 1994, authorities discovered that Nicole, and her friend Ron Goldman, were found stabbed to death outside Nicole’s condo in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Brentwood. With no leads, the police discovered Nicole’s past abusive marriage with Simpson. He became an immediate suspect in the murder, but he did not surrender. Police gathered evidence, and they issued a warrant to arrest Simpson. Then, on June 17, 1994, Simpson initially agreed to turn himself in but instead enlisted his longtime friend and former teammate Al Cowlings, and the two drove off in a White Bronco to escape Los Angeles. As the nation watched in shock, an army of law enforcement chased after them on the turnpike to catch them. Meanwhile, many fans of O.J. Simpson gathered on the side of the road, and they cheered in O.J’s name. They cried “GO OJ!” It was as if Simpson was back on the football field. In Simpson’s possession was a loaded gun, and he was recorded threatening to commit suicide. The incident was so massive that the 1994 NBA Finals were interrupted so the incident could be broadcast. Simpson was immediately caught and arrested.
In order to handle his legal defense, Simpson hired a team of defense lawyers, which were called The Dream Team. These included Robert Kardashian, Jonnie Cochran, Robert Shapiro, and F. Lee Bailey. Marcia Clark was the lead prosecutor of the trial. O.J. Simpson’s murder trial was described as the Trial of the Century, as he became even more famous across the world. Prosecutors managed to find lots of DNA evidence, including the blood of both victims being found in Simpson’s car, Brown’s blood being found on Simpson’s socks, and blood being found at the scene of the crime. Ultimately, on October 3, 1995, an estimated 100 million people tuned in to watch the final verdict of the murder case, and in a move that changed American criminal trials, and probably the nation, O.J. was found not guilty and was acquitted.
Despite being saved from spending the rest of his life in prison, O.J. Simpson’s days in court weren’t over. The innocent verdict shook the nation. Polling showed that most African-Americans believed Simpson and that justice had been served. Los Angeles was still recovering from the infamous Rodney King incident. Two years prior, an African-American man named Rodney King was severely beaten by white Los Angeles police officers for driving while intoxicated. This, combined with the 1992 Los Angeles riots, may have influenced the opinion African-Americans had toward the O.J. Simpson murder case. In 1997, two years after his acquittal, the families of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman filed a civil lawsuit against him. The jury found him liable for both of their deaths. Simpson was ordered to pay $33 million in damages. Eventually, in 2022, Fred Goldman, the father of Ron Goldman, alleged in court papers that Simpson owed him $96 million due to “significant interest.” However, the amount of money the families of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman received was not even close to that.
O.J. Simpson’s life hit rock bottom. Despite being a free man, he spiraled into a life of crime, and he wrote books based on his viewpoints about the murder case, where Simpson proclaimed his innocence in his books and the media during interviews. In 2001, Simpson was arrested for battery and burglary. There were also allegations that Simpson was involved in drug distribution and money laundering, leading to the FBI searching his home. In 2002, Simpson was arrested again for water speeding, and in 2004, was involved in criminal allegations of pirating broadcast signals.
In 2007, Simpson led a group of men into the Palace Station Hotel Casino, and they took sports memorabilia at gunpoint. Two days later, Simpson was arrested for robbery, criminal conspiracy, kidnapping, assault, and several charges. Beginning in 2008, the trial of O.J. Simpson’s robbery case began and Simpson couldn’t escape the consequences of his actions this time. He was found guilty and facing a possible life sentence. On December 5, 2008, Simpson, who was 61 years old at the time, was convicted and sentenced to 33 years in prison, with the possibility of parole after he completed a 9-year prison sentence. He was sent to and served his sentence at Lovelock Correctional Center. After serving nine years, O.J. Simpson was granted a parole hearing in 2017 and won his case. Simpson was released from prison on October 1, 2017, another legal decision that disappointed the nation. He went on to live a quiet life, largely alone after that while he was still in touch with his children. In 2021, he was released from parole for good behavior. Eventually, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer, leading to his death on April 10, 2024, at the age of 76. He was cremated.
The story of O.J. Simpson represents a truly frightening reality in this world. Famous people are able to use their celebrity status and wealthy influence to escape the consequences of their actions, and despite the initial public outcry of their crimes, people will stop caring and eventually forget. The murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were tragedies. But by now, people are so used to tragedy. When tragedies happen, people can’t even bother to look at them anymore. They look for excuses to justify inhuman acts. That’s why they’re willing to forget.
What OJ’s short sentence and eventual parole for robbery demonstrates is that the fact is, people don’t remember, and they don’t care. They just don’t care, and the murders just became another very day tragedy. As a successful football star and given the problem of racism that plagued America in the 1990s, O.J. Simpson got away with it. Not only because of the little money they received in civil court, the families of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman never received true justice for O.J. Simpson’s actions. While he was sent to prison for robbery in 2007, he escaped the consequences for arguably, the bigger and more important crime. To this day, O.J. Simpson’s murder case and acquittal is a dark cloud that overshadows his many accomplishments in American professional football.