OJ Simpson, acquitted of murder in ‘trial of the century,’ dies at 76

O.J. Simpson, the embellished soccer famous person and Hollywood actor who was acquitted of prices he killed his former spouse and her buddy however later discovered liable in a separate civil trial, has died. He was 76.

The household introduced on Simpson’s official X account — previously Twitter — that Simpson died Wednesday after battling most cancers. Simpson’s legal professional confirmed to TMZ he died in Las Vegas.

Simpson earned fame, fortune and adulation via soccer and present enterprise, however his legacy was without end modified by the June 1994 knife slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her buddy Ronald Goldman in Los Angeles.

Dwell TV protection of his arrest after a well-known slow-speed chase marked a surprising fall from grace for the sports activities hero.

He had appeared to transcend racial obstacles because the star Trojans tailback for faculty soccer’s highly effective College of Southern California within the late Nineteen Sixties, as a rental automotive advert pitchman speeding via airports within the late Seventies, and because the husband of a blonde and blue-eyed highschool homecoming queen within the Nineteen Eighties.

“I’m not Black, I’m O.J.,” he appreciated to inform associates.

The general public was mesmerized by his “trial of the century” on reside TV. His case sparked debates on race, gender, home abuse, movie star justice and police misconduct.

A prison court docket jury discovered him not responsible of homicide in 1995, however a separate civil trial jury discovered him liable in 1997 for the deaths and ordered him to pay $33.5 million to relations of Brown and Goldman.

A decade later, nonetheless shadowed by the California wrongful loss of life judgment, Simpson led 5 males he barely knew right into a confrontation with two sports activities memorabilia sellers in a cramped Las Vegas resort room. Two males with Simpson had weapons. A jury convicted Simpson of armed theft and different felonies.

Imprisoned at age 61, he served 9 years in a distant northern Nevada jail, together with a stint as a health club janitor. He was not contrite when he was launched on parole in October 2017. The parole board heard him insist but once more that he was solely attempting to retrieve sports activities memorabilia and household heirlooms stolen from him after his prison trial in Los Angeles.

“I’ve principally spent a conflict-free life, ,” Simpson, whose parole resulted in late 2021, stated.

Public fascination with Simpson by no means pale. Many debated if he had been punished in Las Vegas for his acquittal in Los Angeles. In 2016, he was the topic of each an FX miniseries and five-part ESPN documentary.

“I don’t suppose most of America believes I did it,” Simpson advised The New York Instances in 1995, per week after a jury decided he didn’t kill Brown and Goldman. “I’ve gotten hundreds of letters and telegrams from individuals supporting me.”

Twelve years later, following an outpouring of public outrage, Rupert Murdoch cancelled a deliberate e-book by the Information Corp-owned HarperCollins by which Simpson supplied his hypothetical account of the killings. It was to be titled, “If I Did It.”

Goldman’s household, nonetheless doggedly pursuing the multimillion-dollar wrongful loss of life judgment, received management of the manuscript. They retitled the e-book “If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer.”

“It’s all blood cash, and sadly I needed to be part of the jackals,” Simpson advised The Related Press on the time. He collected $880,000 upfront cash for the e-book, paid via a 3rd celebration.

“It helped me get out of debt and safe my homestead,” he stated.

Lower than two months after shedding the rights to the e-book, Simpson was arrested in Las Vegas.

Simpson performed 11 NFL seasons, 9 of them with the Buffalo Payments, the place he turned generally known as “The Juice” on an offensive line generally known as “The Electrical Firm.” He received 4 NFL speeding titles, rushed for 11,236 yards in his profession, scored 76 touchdowns and performed in 5 Professional Bowls. His greatest season was 1973, when he ran for two,003 yards — the primary working again to interrupt the two,000-yard speeding mark.

“I used to be a part of the historical past of the sport,” he stated years later, recalling that season. “If I did nothing else in my life, I’d made my mark.”

After all, Simpson went on to different fame.

One of many artifacts of his homicide trial, the fastidiously tailor-made tan swimsuit he wore when he was acquitted, was later donated and positioned on show on the Newseum in Washington, D.C. Simpson had been advised the swimsuit can be within the resort room in Las Vegas, but it surely turned out it wasn’t there.

Orenthal James Simpson was born July 9, 1947, in San Francisco, the place he grew up in government-subsidized housing initiatives.

After graduating from highschool, he enrolled at Metropolis School of San Francisco for a 12 months and a half earlier than transferring to the College of Southern California for the spring 1967 semester.

He married his first spouse, Marguerite Whitley, on June 24, 1967, transferring her to Los Angeles the subsequent day so he may start getting ready for his first season with USC — which, largely due to Simpson, received that 12 months’s nationwide championship.

Simpson received the Heisman Trophy in 1968. He accepted the statue on the identical day that his first little one, Arnelle, was born.

He had two sons, Jason and Aaren, together with his first spouse; a kind of boys, Aaren, drowned as a toddler in a swimming pool accident in 1979, the identical 12 months he and Whitley divorced.

Simpson and Brown had been married in 1985. They’d two kids, Justin and Sydney, and divorced in 1992. Two years later, Nicole Brown Simpson was discovered murdered.