OJ Simpson, former U.S. football star acquitted of murder, dies at 76. Simpson died a disgraced, but free, man after leading a controversial life.
O.J. Simpson, the former football great who was accused of and ultimately acquitted of the brutal 1994 slayings of his ex-wife and her friend, has died, according to his family. He was 76.
“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,” a statement from his family said.
In May 2023, Simpson posted a video on X, then known as Twitter, revealing that he had recently “caught cancer” and “had to do the whole chemo thing.” He added, “It looks like I beat it.” Simpson didn’t specify the nature of the cancer.
Then in February 2024, a Las Vegas television station reported that Simpson, then 76, was again undergoing treatment for an unspecified cancer. Simpson himself posted a video on X that day, denying rumors that he was in hospice care, though he did not otherwise confirm or deny reports that he was ill.
Two days later in another video update on X, Simpson thanked those people he said had reached out to him, adding “My health is good. I mean, obviously I’m dealing with some issues but I think I’m just about over it.”
Simpson, nicknamed “The Juice,” broke records as a college and professional football player, and extended his celebrity and fortune as a sportscaster, a movie and television actor, and as a corporate spokesman, most notably for Hertz rental cars.
All that changed on June 12, 1994, when Simpson’s ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman, were brutally stabbed to death outside of the former’s home in the Los Angeles neighborhood of Brentwood. Within days, police announced their intention to arrest the former football star for the murders.
Five days after the killings, 95 million Americans watched as Simpson’s white Ford Bronco – with longtime friend Al Cowlings at the wheel and Simpson in the back seat with a handgun, threatening to kill himself – led police on a 60-mile, low-speed televised chase through Los Angeles that lasted some two hours.
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Simpson ultimately surrendered to police and stood trial for the murders. In October 1995, after 11 months from jury selection to verdict, Simpson was acquitted in a trial that was televised daily and became an international sensation.
Twelve years later, Simpson was arrested in September 2007 after he led a group of men into a Las Vegas hotel and casino to steal, at gunpoint, what he claims was his own sports memorabilia. Simpson was charged with a number of felony counts, including kidnapping and armed robbery. The following year, he was found guilty and sentenced to up to 33 years in prison. Simpson was released on parole on Oct. 1, 2017.
O.J. Simpson is survived by four children: Arnelle and Jason, from his first marriage, and Sydney and Justin, from his marriage to Nicole Brown Simpson.
A football hero
Simpson was born on July 9, 1947, and raised in Potrero Hill, a low-income neighborhood near San Francisco. His mother, Eunice, worked as an orderly at a psychiatric ward, and his father, Jimmy Lee, worked as a cook and custodian in a private club. When Simpson was just a toddler, his father left the family, leaving Simpson’s mother to raise and support their four children on her own.
Despite being bow-legged and pigeon-toed from a bout with rickets in infancy, according to ESPN, Simpson developed a strong interest in sports as a child. In the spring of 1967, he enrolled at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, and that same year he married his high school sweetheart, Marguerite Whitley, with whom he eventually had three children.
Playing for USC as a running back, Simpson soon became college football’s leading rusher. By the time he left the school, he had set 13 college football records and had won the 1968 Heisman Trophy.
The charismatic young star athlete’s television career took off like a rocket. On the night he won the Heisman, Simpson signed a television contract with ABC Sports. The following year, Simpson was the first pick in the 1969 draft, signing with the Buffalo Bills for a then-record $650,000, five-year contract. By 1973, Simpson had scored an NFL-record 23 touchdowns in a season. He also set the most rushing yards in a single game, with 250, and broke the record for the most rushing yards in a season, with 2,003.
Simpson’s football prowess made him a star off the field as well. In 1975, Hertz signed Simpson as the first Black man hired for a major national corporate advertising campaign, with soon-familiar commercials of him, smiling and clad in business suit, running through airports and leaping over obstacles to get to his rental car. The success of the ad campaign led other corporations to sign endorsement contracts with Simpson, increasing both his wealth and name recognition.
The Buffalo Bills traded Simpson to the San Francisco 49ers prior to the 1978 season, prompting him to move with his family to the West Coast, though after two seasons with the team, physical problems prompted Simpson to retire from pro football as the highest-paid player in the NFL.
Simpson had acted during his pro football years, notably appearing in the TV miniseries “Roots,” as well as the films “The Towering Inferno,” “Capricorn One” and others. Around the same time he retired from the NFL, he created his own production company and dove into the entertainment business full time. He continued acting, including as a regular in the “Naked Gun” film comedy series, and also served as a TV football commentator.
Meeting Nicole Brown
While still married to Marguerite, Simpson met Nicole Brown, then 18, while she worked as a nightclub waitress in Beverly Hills in 1977. It was the same year Simpson and Marguerite celebrated the arrival of their daughter, Aaren, and moved into a Tudor-style mansion in the Brentwood neighborhood of LA. Two years later, tragedy struck when Aaren died in the swimming pool at the family home. Around that same time, Simpson and Marguerite finalized their divorce, and Nicole Brown moved in.
Simpson and Brown were wed in 1985, a union that produced two children. However, the marriage was marred by accusations of Simpson’s physical abuse of his wife. Simpson was arrested in 1989 for beating her as he reportedly threatened to kill her. He pleaded no contest to the charges and was sentenced to probation, counseling and community service. Though the couple attempted to reconcile, Nicole Brown Simpson filed for divorce, which was finalized in 1992.
- ABC News