OJ Simpson, the star football player who was accused of killing his ex-wife, dies at 76

The football star and Hollywood celebrity whose 11-month murder trial became a landmark moment in the national debate over race and criminal justice has died of cancer.

OJ. Simpson in court in Los Angeles in 1994. Picture: AFP.

OJ Simpson, the football star and Hollywood celebrity whose murder trial became a landmark moment in the national debate over race and criminal justice, has died. He was 76 years old.

He died Wednesday from cancer, a post on Simpson’s X account said, which was attributed to the Simpson family.

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 Simpson Family

— O.J. Simpson (@TheRealOJ32) April 11, 2024

Simpson’s accomplishments as one of the greatest running backs in college and professional football history, along with a career as an actor and celebrity pitchman, were overshadowed by his 1994 arrest following a nationally televised police chase for allegedly killing his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.

The subsequent trial, which was televised in its entirety and lasted nearly a year, was a worldwide media sensation. Simpson’s acquittal divided the nation largely along racial lines. Polls showed that most white people believed Simpson was guilty, while most Black Americans believed the defence’s case that his prosecution was evidence racism pervaded the U.S. justice system, no matter how famous the victim.

OJ Simpson and his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, celebrate the opening of the Harley-Davidson Cafe in 1993. Picture: Paul Hurschmann.

Despite his acquittal, Simpson never regained his status as an advertising star, actor or sports announcer. In the three decades since the case, he lost a wrongful-death suit over the deaths of Brown Simpson and Goldman, wrote a book he said was a hypothetical tale of how he would have carried out the killings, and spent nine years in prison on robbery and kidnapping charges. Simpson was granted parole in 2017.

Debate about his guilt and the larger racial issues that his trial brought up have remained a consistent subject of public fascination, spawning documentaries, books, and a fictionalised TV series.

Murder defendant OJ Simpson (C) listens to the not guilty verdict with his attorneys F. Lee Bailey (L) and Johnnie Cochran Jr (R) in Los Angeles. Picture: AFP.

Born Orenthal James Simpson in 1947, Simpson grew up in public housing in San Francisco and was arrested multiple times before he began playing football. After two years at San Francisco City College, he transferred to the University of Southern California, where he led the nation in rushing for two consecutive years and won the Heisman Trophy his senior year.

By the time he graduated in 1968, Simpson was already one of the most famous athletes in the country. He was picked No. 1 overall in the 1969 NFL/AFL draft, where he was selected by the Buffalo Bills. In 1973, Sports Illustrated described him as “the once and future greatest running back in the history of football.” He played nine seasons with the Bills and two with the San Francisco 49ers and was selected to six Pro Bowls. Simpson set numerous NFL records, including the most touchdowns and yards rushing in a single season and the second-most career rushing yards. He was elected to the NFL Hall of Fame in 1985, his first year of eligibility.

OJ Simpson’s mugshot. Picture: AFP.

With his good looks, winning smile and a charming personality, Simpson was a beloved celebrity at a time when relatively few Black people enjoyed that status. All of America knew him as “Juice” – a nickname derived from “OJ” standing for “orange juice.” Simpson’s first breakthrough outside of sports came in a series of commercials for Hertz Rent-A-Car starting in the 1970s. He remained the company’s spokesman for more than a decade.

Years before he retired from football, Simpson had set his sights on a second career as an actor. He appeared in numerous series and movies during off-seasons, including the movie “The Towering Inferno” and the miniseries “Roots,” and transitioned to Hollywood full-time upon leaving the NFL in 1979. Though he never achieved star status, Simpson appeared in projects throughout the 1980s while also becoming a ubiquitous presence in commercials and working as a professional football commentator.

Despite his status as one of the most famous Black people in the U.S., Simpson rarely discussed race or racism publicly in the 1970s and ‘80s. “I’m happy with being Black and I don’t trip about it,” he told Playboy magazine in 1976.

OJ Simpson (C), looks at a new pair of Aris extra-large gloves which the prosecutors had him put on for the jur during his trial. Picture: AFP.

By 1994, Simpson’s celebrity was fading and he spent much of his time playing golf. But his place in American culture instantaneously changed on the evening of June 17, 1994, when he participated in perhaps the most famous police chase in U.S. history. Five days earlier, Simpson’s ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman had been found stabbed to death at her Los Angeles home. Investigators soon homed in on Simpson as a suspect and arranged for him to turn himself in at police headquarters that morning on two charges of first-degree murder.

But Simpson never showed up. After being declared a wanted fugitive, he was spotted in a white Ford Bronco driven by his longtime friend and former football teammate Al Cowlings. The pair led police on a two-hour chase in which police largely kept their distance, because Cowlings said Simpson was in the back seat, threatening to kill himself.

Filmed by news choppers flying overhead, the drama played out live on TV, bringing an entire nation to a standstill. Some 95 million people, in two-thirds of the nation’s households, watched the chase live.

Simpson eventually turned himself in at his home and began what would become one of the most watched and debated criminal trials in American history. The fact that Simpson was Black and his former wife Brown Simpson and her friend Goldman were white only added to the drama in a racially divided country.

Prosecutors believed they had a strong case because so much forensic evidence pointed to Simpson, as well as the history of his relationship with the victim. Brown Simpson, who had two children with Simpson, had previously accused him of domestic violence. He had pleaded no contest to one count in 1989. In his book “If I Did It,” published in 2007, Simpson admitted to having physical altercations with Brown Simpson but denied beating her.

Motorists wave as police cars pursue the Ford Bronco (white, R) carrying fugitive and murder suspect O.J Simpson on a 90 minutes chase on Los Angeles freeway. Picture: AFP.

Simpson’s DNA was found in blood droplets and a bloody glove on the scene. DNA from the victims was found in blood in Simpson’s vehicle he drove to their home that night. Hair fibres and shoe prints also pointed to him.

The defence argued police had mishandled and contaminated the physical evidence and were engaged in a conspiracy to frame Simpson. Much of their case rested on portraying the Los Angeles Police Department, which had for decades been a majority white institution mistrusted by the city’s Black population, as untrustworthy because of its deep-seated racism. In one of the trial’s most famous moments, the defence played audiotapes of Detective Mark Fuhrman, an investigator in the case, using the word “n – -” 41 times.

One of the most memorable parts of the trial came when Simpson was asked to try on a pair of gloves in front of the jury. Simpson appeared to struggle putting them on, and his lawyer Johnnie Cochran said in his closing argument: “If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.” Simpson’s case was the first nationally televised trial with a celebrity defendant. Millions of people watched the proceedings on the cable network Court TV. Prosecutors Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden became celebrities. Simpson’s lawyers, including Cochran, F. Lee Bailey, Robert Kardashian, and Alan Dershowitz, some of the nation’s best-known defence attorneys, were dubbed the “dream team.” Judge Lance Ito was parodied on “The Tonight Show” in a recurring sketch called “The Dancing Itos.” The pop culture circus that enveloped the proceedings often overshadowed their seriousness, particularly as the trial dragged on for 11 months. But the nation was again riveted as the trial finally concluded. In their closing arguments, Simpson’s attorneys described the evidence as “contaminated, corrupted and compromised” and said jurors’ mission wasn’t just to acquit Simpson, but to strike a blow against LAPD racism.

“Maybe there is a reason why we’re here,” Cochran said. “Maybe you’re the right people at the right time at the right place to say: ‘No more!’”

Prosecutors argued that claims of racism and conspiracy were irrelevant in the face of evidence that Simpson had been violent with his ex-wife in the past and the voluminous physical evidence from the crime scene.

“He is not the person that you see on those TV commercials and at halftime in those football games,” Darden said. “This is a rage killing.” After less than four hours of deliberation, on Oct. 3, 1995, the jury found Simpson not guilty. About half the homes in America tuned in to watch. Many Black Americans, particularly in Los Angeles, were overjoyed and publicly celebrated. Others, including many white Americans, were confused and angry.

The result sparked discussions across the country about how Black and white Americans could see the verdict – and the nature of American justice – so differently.

For his part, Simpson maintained that the broader debate distracted from the facts of the case, which he argued demonstrated his innocence. “Many times I watch TV, I’m watching something totally unrelated to my case or me and they bring me up,” he told Katie Couric on “The Today Show” in 1999.

In 1997, Simpson was found liable in a wrongful-death civil case brought against him by parents of the victims and ordered to pay $33.5 million in damages. The families received only a fraction of the money, including the proceeds from the sale of his Heisman Trophy.

In subsequent years, Simpson would occasionally pop back into the public consciousness. In 2006, he made a hidden-camera special called “Juiced” in which he and a partner would prank people and then shout “You’ve been juiced!” In 2006, Simpson wrote a book called “If I Did It,” which purported to describe how he could have murdered Brown Simpson and Goldman. After a public outcry, publisher HarperCollins cancelled its release and destroyed 400,000 copies. HarperCollins, like The Wall Street Journal, is owned by News Corp.

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