O.J. Simpson is interviewed by the press after leading Trojans to 14-3 Rose Bowl win. Simpson, who gained 128 yards in 25 carries, was named Player of the Game.

Neve Dawson

Known most notoriously as a celebrity acquitted of murder in the late 1990s, former American Football star and actor O.J. Simpson has died following a battle with cancer. 

Who Was O.J. Simpson?

Born in San Francisco in 1947, Orenthal James Simpson rose to fame as a college American football player for the University of Southern California, later signing with the San Francisco 49ers and Buffalo Bills as a Running back.

The star’s acting career began during his time at USC where he appeared on the TV show Medical Center. Simpson later starred in films The Klansman (1974), The Cassandra Crossing (1976) and The Towering Inferno (1974) all whilst still playing in the NFL.

In 1977, Simpson met his future wife Nicole Brown in a Beverly Hills nightclub where she worked as a waitress.

Newspaper headline reads 'Not Guilty', on October 4, 1995, the day of the O.J. Simpson murder trial verdict.
Image courtesy of Sarah Sphar via Flickr. No changes were made to this image. Image license found here.

While still married to Marguerite Whitley, with whom Simpson had three children, Brown and Simpson began dating. They were later married in 1985, following Simpson’s divorce from Whitley and his retirement from professional football. The couple had two children together: Sydney Brooke and Justin Ryan.

The marriage between Nicole Brown Simpson and O.J. Simpson was marked by a tumultuous history of domestic abuse, with the police being called to their home on eight separate occasions in response to domestic disturbances. Nicole had made numerous claims of domestic violence against her husband, including allegations that O.J. had locked her in a wine cellar for hours and physically beaten her.

Despite these serious allegations, the authorities largely overlooked the abuse at the time. In 1992, Nicole filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences, including allegations that O.J. had been having an affair with model Tawny Kitten.

Following the end of their marriage, Simpson allegedly continued to stalk and harass his ex-wife, causing her to “fear for her life.”

Tragically, on 12th June 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman were found murdered outside her home, and O.J. Simpson was arrested and charged with the double homicide, sparking one of the highest-profile criminal trials in American history.

The Murder of Nicole Brown and Ronald Goldman

On the 12th June 1994, Nicole Brown and her friend Ronald Goldman were found dead outside her Brentwood condo. Brown had received numerous stab wounds to the neck and head which had left her on the verge of decapitation.

Due to Brown’s previous allegations of domestic violence, Simpson was considered a person of interest in the murders and charges were made instantly against the football star.

A sensational slow-speed police chase followed as Simpson failed to turn himself in to the authorities for questioning. The chase was televised and drew an audience of 95 million people.

The trial of Simpson soon became a media circus that filled the television screens of thousands across the globe.

Armed with a “dream team” of defence lawyers, including the late Robert Kardashian, Simpson was ultimately acquitted of all charges and found not guilty for the two murders in a trial that encompassed questions of women’s rights, race and the prominence of the celebrity in society.

However, in 1997, Goldman’s family brought a civil suit against Simpson. He was found liable for the wrongful death and battery against Brown and was ordered to pay $33.5 million in damages.

In 2007, Simpson published the controversial book If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer, in which he detailed a hypothetical account of how he would have killed his ex-wife.

Simpson later served nine years in prison for robbery, kidnapping and other charges in a Las Vegas sports memorabilia scheme. He was released in 2017.

O.J. Simpson In Death

Following the infamous police car chase, during which Simpson famously drove a Ford Bronco, sales of the vehicle spiked dramatically. The company saw an estimated 7,000 additional purchases, underscoring Simpson’s enduring celebrity status.

In the decades since the highly publicised murder trial in the late 1990s, Simpson has been the subject of numerous Hollywood films and documentaries, including the acclaimed and Oscar-winning O.J.: Made in America (2016) and The People v O.J. Simpson (2016), further solidifying his position as a figure of intense public fascination and scrutiny.

Following the star’s death, Simpson’s name has been plastered across news headlines, television guides and repeatedly mentioned in radio programmes. The memory of his trial is undoubtedly resurfacing postmortem.

US attorney Gloria Allred, who represented Brown’s family during the trial, has stated that Simpson’s death is a reminder of the legal system’s failures towards abused women.

Allred further cited the system’s failings to sufficiently deal with celebrity legal cases.

“The legal system, even 30 years later, is still failing battered women, and that the power of celebrity men to avoid true justice for the harm that they inflict on their wives or significant others is still a major obstacle to the right of women to be free of the gender violence to which they are still subjected,” Allred wrote.

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Featured image courtesy of Los Angeles Times Photographic Collection via Wikimedia Commons. Image license found here. No changes were made to this image.

BA English + History Student at the University of Bristol | News, Culture and Arts Journalist for Empoword Journalism, Epigram News, So Young Magazine and The Rodeo Magazine.

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