OJ Simpson, one of the most controversial figures in modern American history, has died at the age of 76.
According to a statement from his family on
“On April 10, our father, Orenthal James Simpson, lost his battle with cancer. He was surrounded by his children and grandchildren. During this time of transition, his family asks that you respect their wishes for privacy and tranquility,” wrote the X Simpson account sounds.
In the past, Simpson was a figure respected for his extraordinary contributions to college and professional football. His success and accomplishments on the gridiron have long been surrounded by the shadow of his 1994 arrest for the alleged murder of his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman.
Simpson was arrested on June 17, 1994, after a lengthy, low-speed police manhunt broadcast live on television stations around the world.
Crowds gathered on the overpass to see Simpson, who was famously chased in a white Ford Bronco driven by his friend and former teammate, Al Cowlings.
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Simpson was on trial for murder over 11 months in what many legal experts at the time called the “Trial of the Century.” His legal team has great attorneys like Robert Shapiro and the late Johnnie Cochran, Robert Kardashian, and F. Lee Bailey.
On October 3, 1995, a jury returned not guilty verdicts on both murder charges. An estimated 100 million people in the United States alone watched or listened to the shocking verdict.
Born on July 9, 1947, in San Francisco, Simpson played football in high school and at City College of San Francisco before transferring to the University of Southern California. Simpson was a running back for the Trojans in 1967 and 1968, leading the nation in yards passing both years. As a senior, he was awarded the Heisman Trophy.
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Simpson was selected first by the Buffalo Bills in the 1969 Joint AFL-NFL Draft, and played with the team until 1978. From 1979 until his retirement in 1982, Simpson played for his hometown San Francisco 49ers.
Simpson, nicknamed “Juice,” became the first NFL player to rush for more than 2,000 yards in a season in 1973, and to this day holds the record for average yards per game in a season — at 143.1. He is the only player to ever rush for more than 2,000 yards in a 14-game NFL regular season format.
He went into the Pro Football Hall of Fame with the class of 1983.
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After retiring from professional football, Simpson became a football broadcaster and sports journalist. He is also known for his acting abilities, appearing on television shows such as Dragnet, In the Heat of the Night, and 1st and Ten, as well as in films such as The Towering Inferno, Roots, and The Naked Gun trilogy.
Simpson also starred in the television film Frogmen. Completed several months before the murders, the film was never shown, after NBC executives ultimately decided to shelve it.
At age 19, Simpson married Marguerite Whitley, and the couple had three children—Arnelle, Jason, and Aeren Simpson. In 1979, at the age of 2, Aeren drowned in the family swimming pool. The couple divorced in 1979, and Simpson married Nicole Brown Simpson in 1985. They had two children — Sydney and Justin Simpson — before divorcing in 1992.
After his release, Simpson was dragged into civil court by the Brown and Goldman families.
In 1997, the court ruled in their favor, awarding them a liability judgment of US$33.5 million. Simpson ultimately paid only a fraction of that amount.
Ten years later, Simpson was arrested in Las Vegas, Nevada, on charges of armed robbery and kidnapping after forcing people to return memorabilia he claimed they had stolen from him. The incident occurred inside the Palace Station Hotel and Casino.
The case went to trial, and in 2008, Simpson was found guilty and sentenced to 33 years in prison. He served nearly nine years of that sentence at the Lovelock Corrections Center before being released on October 1, 2017.
After his release, Simpson kept a relatively low profile, moving to Las Vegas. In 2019, he joined X, where he is followed by more than 1 million people. (People/Z-3)
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