OJ Simpson, American football star who was acquitted of murder in “trial of the century,” dies at 76 – Firstpost

One of the most controversial sports figures of all time, OJ Simpson, died on Thursday at the age of 76. The family announced on Simpson’s official X account – formerly Twitter – that Simpson died Wednesday from prostate cancer. Simpson’s attorney confirmed to TMZ that he died in Las Vegas.

Simpson rose to fame as an American football superstar and his Hollywood acting, but his legacy was forever changed by the stabbing murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman in June 1994 in Los Angeles.

Live television coverage of his arrest after a famous low-speed chase marked a stunning fall from grace for the sporting hero.

He had seemed to transcend racial barriers as a Trojans star for the football powerhouse University of Southern California in the late 1960s, as a rental car pitchman and airport rusher in the late 1960s. 1970, and as the husband of a blue-eyed blonde. high school prom queen in the 1980s.

“I’m not black, I’m OJ,” he liked to tell his friends.

The public was fascinated by his “trial of the century” live on television. Her case sparked debates about race, gender, domestic violence, celebrity justice and police misconduct.

A criminal court jury found him not guilty of murder in 1995, but a separate civil trial jury found him responsible in 1997 for those deaths and ordered him to pay $33.5 million to family members. by Brown and Goldman.

A decade later, still in the shadow of the wrongful death ruling in California, Simpson led five men he barely knew into a confrontation with two sports memorabilia dealers in a cramped Las Vegas hotel room. Two men with Simpson had weapons. A jury convicted Simpson of armed robbery and other crimes.

Imprisoned at age 61, he served nine years in a remote northern Nevada prison, including a job as a janitor at a gymnasium. He was not contrite when he was released on parole in October 2017. The parole board heard him once again insist he was only trying to collect sports memorabilia and family heirlooms which had been stolen from him after his criminal trial in Los Angeles.

“I pretty much lived a conflict-free life, you know,” said Simpson, whose parole ended at the end of 2021.

The public’s fascination with Simpson has never faded. Many wondered if he was punished in Las Vegas for his acquittal in Los Angeles. In 2016, he was the subject of an FX miniseries and a five-part ESPN documentary.

“I don’t think most Americans believe I did it,” Simpson told the New York Times in 1995, a week after a jury determined he did not kill Brown and Goldman. “I have received thousands of letters and telegrams from people who support me.”

Twelve years later, following a wave of public outrage, Rupert Murdoch canceled a planned book by News Corp-owned HarperCollins in which Simpson offered his hypothetical account of the murders. The title was to be “If I Did It”.

Goldman’s family, still stubbornly pursuing the multimillion-dollar wrongful death judgment, took control of the manuscript. They renamed the book “If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer.”

“It’s blood money, and unfortunately I had to join the jackals,” Simpson told the Associated Press at the time. He raised $880,000 in advance for the book, paid through a third party.

“It helped me become debt free and secure my property,” he said.

Less than two months after losing the rights to the book, Simpson was arrested in Las Vegas.

Simpson played 11 seasons in the NFL, nine of which were with the Buffalo Bills, where he became known as “The Juice” on an offensive line known as “The Electric Company.” He won four NFL rushing titles, totaled 11,236 rushing yards in his career, scored 76 touchdowns and made five Pro Bowls. His best season was 1973, when he rushed for 2,003 yards – the first running back to break the 2,000-yard rushing mark.

“I was part of the history of the game,” he said years later, recalling that season. “If I did nothing else in my life, I would have left my mark.”

Of course, Simpson gained other fame.

One of the items from his murder trial, the carefully tailored beige suit he wore when he was acquitted, was later donated and displayed at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. Simpson had been informed that the suit would be in the room hotel in Las Vegas. , but it turned out it wasn’t there.

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

After graduating from high school, he enrolled at City College of San Francisco for a year and a half before transferring to the University of Southern California for the spring 1967 semester.

He married his first wife, Marguerite Whitley, on June 24, 1967, moving her to Los Angeles the next day so he could begin preparing for his first season with USC – which, thanks in large part to Simpson, won the national championship this year.

Simpson won the Heisman Trophy in 1968. He accepted the statue on the same day his first child, Arnelle, was born.

He had two sons, Jason and Aaren, with his first wife; one of these boys, Aaren, drowned as a child in a swimming pool accident in 1979, the same year of his divorce from Whitley.

Simpson and Brown married in 1985. They had two children, Justin and Sydney, and divorced in 1992. Two years later, Nicole Brown Simpson was found murdered.

“We don’t need to go back and relive the worst day of our lives,” he told the AP 25 years after the double murders. “The topic of the moment is the topic I will never return to again. My family and I have moved into what we call the “non-negative zone.” We focus on the positive. »

With AP inputs