O.J. Simpson, who broke into the public eye as a star NCAA running back at the University of Southern California and became a public pariah decades later when he was charged with fatally stabbing his ex-wife and her friend, has died at 76 years old.
Nicknamed “Juice” on the field, he won a Heisman Trophy, spent 11 seasons in the NFL with the Buffalo Bills and San Francisco 49ers, and found a few roles in Hollywood.
Then Simpson’s name became forever tarnished after his 1994 arrest in the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman – charges of which he would later be acquitted at trial.
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Even his arrest was a spectacle after he broke his promise to surrender to police and took off in the back seat of a friend’s SUV.
The image of Simpson in a white Ford Bronco fleeing an army of police cruisers in Los Angeles became part of the national consciousness.
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Simpson and Brown split after seven years of marriage, following reports of a volatile relationship and spats of domestic violence.
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The trial stretched on for months and became a global spectacle as one of the first televised start-to-finish to a national audience.
“We were fortunate to convince Judge [Lance] Ito to keep the cameras running in spite of the showboating, but we certainly paid a steep price,” Royal Oakes, the media attorney who convinced the judge to allow TV news cameras in the courtroom. “For years after the Simpson trial, it was extremely difficult to get judges to give a green light to cameras.”
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After his acquittal on the murder charges, Simpson faced a civil trial and was found liable for the deaths, costing him $33.5 million – most of which he hadn’t paid.
His financial troubles later led to an armed robbery in Las Vegas, and he finally went to prison.
He was freed from prison in October 2017 and received early release from parole in November 2021.
He attempted a comeback on X, formerly known as Twitter, posting selfie videos about current events.
Simpson’s children announced Thursday morning that their father died the prior evening.
He had been struggling with cancer.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
