A larger-than-life figure, O.J. Simpson was the embodiment of the Black American dream.
From humble beginnings in a Black San Francisco community gripped by crime and poverty, Simpson soared to stardom on the football field, a gifted, electrifying athlete who seemed to break records as easily as he broke tackles. Movie-star handsome with a captivating smile, he parlayed a Hall of Fame football career into TV and movie superstardom: a Black athlete who put both white audiences and corporate CEOs at ease.
His transition was so seamless and so successful that — decades before Twitter, cell phone cameras, reality TV, and NFL Thursday Night Football — the man everyone called O.J. joined the heady pantheon of pop-culture figures known by just one name.
The veneer of rags-to-riches success and Hollywood glamor, however, masked a darker side, exposed when Simpson stood accused of brutally killing his ex-wife in a double murder that shocked the nation. The sensational charges, the riveting jury trial that followed, and the stunning acquittal that made Simpson a free man — at least temporarily — put America’s deep racial fault lines on full display.
But it also permanently stained Simpson’s legendary sports and entertainment career. And it all but eclipsed the tragic, unsolved death of his young ex-wife, the mother of two of his children.
Arguably one of the most beloved and polarizing figures in American history, Simpson died after a long battle with cancer early Thursday. He was 76.
As news of Simpson’s death rocketed around the world, it brought retrospectives of his remarkable life, athletic career, and knack for reinvention. Overshadowing it all, however, were descriptions of Simpson as an accused murderer, the criminal defendant at the center of what many called the Trial of the Century.
Indeed, people took to X, recalling where they were when Simpson was cleared of killing his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman.
The historic, televised trial fascinated the nation and turned Los Angeles into the set of the ultimate reality show revolving around the highest stakes: life and death.
Coming just two years after the Rodney King beating and uprisings, however, the trial swept in accusations of racism and corruption in the Los Angeles Police Department, a longtime grievance of L.A.’s Black community. It shined a light on how American society treated abused women, a generation before #MeToo, And, just ahead of the era of mass incarceration of Black men, Simpson’s murder trial revealed a dysfunctional, two-tiered criminal justice system that favors the wealthy, white, and powerful.
Broadcast live on cable news for days on end, the spectacle elevated key players — Johnnie Cochran, Robert Kardashian, Marcia Clark, Kato Kaelin — into household names of the era. Anticipating more violence, L.A. was on edge and police on high alert. But the acquittal of a black man acquitted of a high-profile murder also turned the racial tables, putting whites on the receiving end of bitter injustice.
After he was cleared, however, Simpson’s legal troubles continued, haunting him into late middle age.
In 1997, the victims’ families sued him in civil court, winning $33.5 million in damages. In 2007, Simpson was jailed for the gunpoint robbery of a sports memorabilia dealer in Las Vegas. Simpson denied being armed and said he only wanted to retrieve artifacts that had been stolen from him, but a jury disagreed.
Simpson was sentenced to 33 years in prison, but was granted parole after serving 9 years.
After his release, he moved to Florida and kept a very low profile, but the Trial of the Century lived on in popular culture. It inspired dozens of tell-all books, documentaries, and an Emmy-winning TV series. It also triggered thorny questions about race, celebrity and the definition of justice in America.
Difficult Early Life
Born Orenthal James Simpson on July 9, 1947, O.J. grew up poor in San Francisco’s hardscrabble Potrero Hill neighborhood, a now-gentrified enclave. Afflicted with rickets, a bone disease caused by vitamin D deficiency, Simpson wore the leg braces his mother made him; he gradually overcame the disease and developed into a talented high school athlete.
But with an absent father and a single mother working hard to put food on the table, Simpson struggled to overcome the influence of his bleak surroundings. He joined a gang, was repeatedly suspended from school for troublemaking, and was no stranger to violence.
“I was in a lot of street fights,” he recalled later. “Maybe because I usually won.”
Football would become his salvation. It wasn’t easy.
Unable to win a college scholarship due to weak grades and mediocre high school teams, Simpson enrolled in junior college after graduation, where his athletic potential blossomed after a late growth spurt. Enticed by his raw combination of power and speed, the University of Southern California — then a college football juggernaut — awarded Simpson a full athletic scholarship.
As USC’s featured tailback, Simpson thrilled the Trojan faithful and college football fans nationwide with a style that combined grace, quickness and blunt force if tacklers dared to challenge him. His jaw-dropping exploits earned him several All-America honors and the Heisman Trophy, the sport’s highest award, in 1968.
Drafted by the Buffalo Bills in the first round of the 1969 NFL draft, Simpson would go on to play in the league for 11 years, breaking the single-season rushing record in 1973. Nicknamed “The Juice,” Simpson was among the first league-wide superstars of the NFL’s modern TV era, and was elected to the Hall of Fame the first year he was eligible.
When his career ended in 1979, Simpson — telegenic, charismatic, and coast-to-coast famous — dashed from the locker room to the pop-culture spotlight. He was a pro football analyst for ABC and NBC. He became the face of Hertz car rental in a series of memorable ads featuring him running through airports. He landed choice roles in memorable TV series like “Roots” and big-budget action films like “The Towering Inferno.”
Through it all, Simpson carefully cultivated the image of an articulate, non-threatening Black American idol, a racially transcendent star who was trusted by, and marketable to, both Black and white audiences. Despite his high profile and tough upbringing, he steered clear of the era’s civil rights protests.
Through it all, Simpson carefully cultivated the image of an articulate, non-threatening Black American idol, a racially transcendent star who was trusted by, and marketable to, both Black and white audiences. Despite his high profile and tough upbringing, he steered clear of the era’s civil rights protests.
“I’m not Black, I’m O.J.,” he reportedly liked to tell friends. But trouble roiled just under the surface of his seemingly charmed life.
Tumultuous Marriages
Though they’d met in high school and wed in 1967, the marriage of Simpson and Marguerite Whitley was punctuated by several separations starting in 1970, the year after he entered the NFL. They parted for good in 1979, not long after their toddler son drowned in the family swimming pool.
Around then, Simpson met Nicole Brown, a teenage waitress who worked at a nightclub near Simpson’s home; he was 30, and she was 18. The two began dating and were married in 1985. The couple had two children.
Their marriage, however, was rocked by frequent reports of domestic violence; Los Angeles police logged multiple calls in which Brown Simpson dialed 911, seeking protection from her enraged husband. In perhaps the most noteworthy incident, police arrived to find Brown Simpson — her face battered, wearing only sweatpants and a bra — cowering in bushes outside the couple’s home.
Officers did not arrest Simpson, who raced from the scene in his Bentley sedan. Still, he was summoned to court, fined, and placed on probation after pleading guilty to spousal battery. The couple divorced in 1992, but Simpson kept menacing his ex-wife, who kept calling police.
A Double Murder and Bronco Chase
On June 12, 1994, Brown Simpson, 35, and Goldman, 25, were attacked outside her condominium in Brentwood, not far from her ex-husband’s estate. Police said Brown Simpson was nearly decapitated, and Goldman had been hacked to death.
Police zeroed in on Simpson and arranged for him to surrender, but he ran instead. With his friend and former teammate, Al Cowling, at the wheel of the iconic white Ford Bronco. Simpson led a squadron of officers and news helicopters on the infamous, low-speed, 60-mile chase along the freeways of Southern California.
The bizarre chase ended at the door of his Brentwood mansion; Simpson, distraught and suicidal, gave himself up. He was booked on two counts of first-degree murder and held without bond.
Trial of the Century
The ensuing trial was a lengthy spectacle that unfolded before a 12-person jury — 10 of whom were Black. From a distance, the prosecution’s case looked ironclad: detectives collected substantial evidence, including hair, fibers, and blood, linking Simpson to the crime scene. Moreover, investigators gathered records showing Brown Simpson had reported her ex-husband for abuse more than five dozen times during their tumultuous marriage.
But the case against Simpson was also highly flawed: There were no eyewitnesses, and the murder weapon was never found. Evidence had been lost or mishandled, and Detective Mark Fuhrman — the prosecution’s star witness — had to acknowledge he’d gathered key items from Simpson’s home without a warrant, a violation of the defendant’s rights.
Simpson’s defense, led by Cochran, seized on the issues to insinuate to the jury that his client was the victim of a police department intent on taking down a powerful Black man who had been married to a blonde white woman. His argument was bolstered by a recording of Fuhrman, made in secret, casually using the N-word.
Perhaps the most iconic moments of the trial occurred when Cochran asked Simpson to try on the blood-drenched leather gloves police had linked to the murder. Unable to stuff his hands into the dry, shrunken gloves, Simpson held up both hands to the jury, and Cochran hammered the point home in his closing argument.
“Those gloves didn’t fit,” Cochran told the jury. “The gloves didn’t fit Mr. Simpson because he is not the killer.”
Therefore, “If the gloves don’t fit, you must acquit.”
The highly-anticipated verdict, broadcast live around the nation — in classrooms, college auditoriums, barber shops, even the White House — created a split-screen image of two America. On one side, Black people prayed, held hands, and erupted with joy when the not-guilty verdict was announced; on the other, whites were stunned, tearful, and outraged that Simpson, an obviously guilty man in their eyes, would go free.
Simpson’s story is now at an end; he reportedly died surrounded by his family. but his complicated legacy will live on, along with the racial discord he came to represent. Simpson considered himself a transracial figure in his prime; given his fame, fortune, and spectators lining the 405 freeway cheering his run to daylight from police, it’s difficult to refute.
But much of Simpson’s story reflected some of the most common, complex, and painful aspects of Black America: his impoverished youth, his escape through athletics and his intense, late-in-life contact with the criminal justice system, and whites’ rejection of him because of it.
Ultimately, Simpson died a free man, but was not able to outrun his past.