The former NFL star O.J. Simpson and acquitted murder defendant died on Wednesday after a battle with cancer. He was 76 years old.
Simpson Dead At 76
Daily Mail reported that Simpson died at his home in Las Vegas, Nevada on Wednesday night after battling prostate cancer in recent years.
“On April 10th, our father, Orenthal James Simpson, succumbed to his battle with cancer,” his family wrote on his social media accounts.
“He was surrounded by his children and grandchildren,” they continued. “During this time of transition, his family asks that you please respect their wishes for privacy and grace. -The Simpson Family.”
Simpson’s NFL Career
Simpson got his start in the world of football as a running back when he became USC’s second Heisman Trophy winner in 1968, earning the most first-place votes (855) in the award’s history, according to ESPN. During that season, Simpson established a then-NCAA single-season rushing record with 1,709 yards as he guided the Trojans to a Rose Bowl appearance in which they lost to top-ranked Ohio State despite his 171 yards and 80-yard TD.
In the two seasons that Simpson played for USC, he was twice a unanimous All-American and equaled or bettered 19 NCAA, conference and school records. He was then the number one draft pick for the Buffalo Bills and went on to play eleven seasons for the team, making five First Team All-Pro squads and six Pro Bowls.
Simpson was MVP in 1973, when he became the first to rush for 2,000 yards in a season (doing it in 14 games) while averaging 141.3 yards per game, which is still an NFL record to this day.
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Simpson’s Criminal History
Simpson later reinvented himself as an actor, most notably appearing in the Naked Gun trilogy. He’s best remembered, however, for going on trial for the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ronald Goldman in 1994. Brown and Goldman were found stabbed to death on June 12 of that year outside her condo in the Brentwood area of Los Angeles.
After Simpson became a person of interest, he led police on a low-speed chase throughout Los Angeles as a passenger in a white Ford Bronco driven by former NFL player Al Cowlings. An estimated 95 million people watched the chase unfold on live television before Simpson eventually turned himself in at his own Brentwood home that night.
Though Simpson was eventually found not guilty, he was considered by many to have committed the heinous murders in the court of public opinion. Thirteen years after his murder trial, Simpson was found guilty of 12 counts of armed robbery and kidnapping and sentenced to 33 years in prison after he broke into a Las Vegas hotel room and robbed two sports memorabilia dealers at gunpoint. He served nine years in prison before he was paroled in 2017.
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In a 2019 interview, Simpson said that he and his family never revisit the 1994 murders of Brown and Goldman.
“We don’t need to go back and relive the worst day of our lives,” Simpson said. “The subject of the moment is the subject I will never revisit again. My family and I have moved on to what we call the ‘no negative zone.’ We focus on the positives.”
We will update you further as this story develops.