Welcome back to the Deep Dive, I'm your host
and today… Wow. Today we are clearing the decks.
We are turning off notifications. We are putting
the phone on silent because we have a massive
topic to cover. A huge one. We are tackling a
subject that, I mean, it defines a generation,
maybe even two generations. It really does. It's
good to be back. It is a story that every single
person listening has heard pieces of, but I guarantee
you, and I say this with confidence, the full
picture is so much messier, so much more complicated,
and honestly, so much more tragic than that.
headlines ever captured. Oh, absolutely. You
know, when we started pulling the source material
for this deep dive, we have a huge stack today.
I was struck by how O .J. Simpson has become
almost a mythic figure. Yeah. He's less of a
person and more of a Rorschach test for America.
For some people, especially older sports fans,
he's the greatest running back who ever lived,
period. The geotick. For others, he's that charming
guy in the Hertz commercials, you know, running
through the airport. Right. Go, O .J., go. And
then for a huge portion of the world, he is simply
the face of the trial of the century, a symbol
of the legal system, race relations, and celebrity
culture. all just colliding at once. Exactly.
It's like the timeline of American culture splits
right there in 1994. But O .J. Simpson, the man,
the actual human being who lived from 1947 to
2024, that's what we are here to explore. We
are looking at the complete arc of his life based
on the comprehensive biographical and legal source
material we've pulled. Because he died in April
2024 and that event sort of, it closed the book
on a life that spanned the absolute highest heights
of American celebrity and the darkest, most controversial
corners of the legal system. And that's the mission
for this deep dive, really. We want to move past
the caricature. Yes. We need to understand the
specific details of his athletic career, which
was historic in ways people often forget. And
then the granular evidence of the trials and
the weird, almost surreal aftermath that followed
him right up until his death. Right. We're going
from the housing projects of San Francisco to
the trial of the century and then to a prison
cell in Nevada for a completely different crime.
It is a wild ride. It is. So tone check before
we dive in. I'm here as the curious learner who
remembers the big beats. I remember where I was
when the verdict was read, but I am probably
fuzzy on the detail. No, I'll be here to connect
those dots because you really can't understand
the fall, the sheer magnitude of the tragedy,
if you don't understand just how high that pedestal
was in the first place. Okay, let's untack this.
Let's start at the very beginning. Section one,
the juice. I think people forget that before
he was a defendant, he was, well, he was a god
in the sports world. But he didn't start that
way, did he? Not at all. And this is where the
source material immediately surprises you. Orenthal
James Simpson was born on July 9, 1947, in San
Francisco. He grew up in the Potrero Hill neighborhood.
Okay. Now, if you go to San Francisco today,
real estate is astronomical everywhere. But back
then, in the late 40s and 50s, this was low -income
housing. These were the projects. So a tough
start immediately. A very tough start. His mother,
Eunice, she worked as an orderly in a psychiatric
ward. His father, Jimmy Lee Simpson. was a custodian
and a cook. But looking at the notes, there is
a detail about his father that really complicates
the family dynamic. Something that wasn't widely
discussed during OJ's prime because, you know,
the cultural conversation just wasn't ready for
it. I saw this in the research. His father was
part of the drag scene? Yes. His father, Jimmy
Lee, was a well -known drag queen in the Bay
Area. Later in life, he announced he was gay.
He actually passed away from AIDS in 1986. Wow.
But Simpson's parents separated in 1952, when
O .J. was just four years old, so he was raised
primarily by his mother. But you have to imagine
the psychological landscape of that home life
in the 1950s. That is a very heavy backdrop for
a kid growing up in that era. And physically,
O .J. wasn't exactly born an athlete, was he?
I mean, we think of him as this physical specimen,
but the early years tell a totally different
story. No, and this is the Forrest Gump moment
of his life. It's incredible. As a child, he
suffered from rickets. Rickets. I feel like that's
a Victorian disease, like something you read
about in a Charles Dickens novel. It is, essentially.
It's a condition that softens the bones, usually
due to a severe vitamin D deficiency or a calcium
deficiency. It's really a disease of poverty.
Okay. And because of the rickets, his legs were
bowed. He actually had to wear leg braces until
he was five years old. Just to correct his bone
structure. That is wild irony. The guy who becomes
famous for running, for having these incredible
legs that carry him to the Hall of Fame, started
out in braces, unable to walk properly. It's
unbelievable. Yeah. And that experience, being
the kid in braces in a rough neighborhood, it
shapes you. He was teased. He was vulnerable.
Of course. And typically when you're a vulnerable
kid in that environment, you look for protection.
You look for a tribe. For Simpson, that was a
street gang called the Persian Warriors. The
Persian Warriors. It sounds like a movie game,
but this was real life. So he's heading down
a bad path. A very bad path. He was incarcerated
briefly at the San Francisco Youth Guidance Center.
By his own admission later in life and the accounts
of his high school girlfriend, he was heading
straight for a life of crime. He was fighting.
He was stealing. But then he had this pivotal
meeting, a moment that feels like it belongs
in a movie script. It's just a one in a million
chance. I love this detail. Who did he meet?
Willie Mace. The baseball legend. The say -hey
kid. The absolute legend. After Simpson's third
arrest, a counselor at the youth center arranged
for him to meet Willie Mace. Mace was a god in
San Francisco, and he took the time to talk to
this troubled kid. Wow. He basically told him
to get his act together, that his athletic talent
was a gift, and he was wasting it on the streets.
According to Simpson, that was the moment that
turned the light bulb on. He realized sports
were his ticket out. It's amazing how one conversation,
just one person taking an interest, can change
a whole trajectory. It's everything. So he decides
to focus on football. He plays at Galileo High
School. Right. But he couldn't go straight to
a big university because of his grades, right?
Correct. His grades were terrible. He had the
talent, but not the transcript. So he had to
go to City College of San Francisco first. It's
a junior college. And he didn't just play well.
He obliterated the competition. Unnominated.
He broke junior college rushing records left
and right. Suddenly, the grades didn't matter
as much to the recruiters. Every major university
in the country wanted him. And he chose USC,
the University of Southern California. A match
made in heaven. He lands in Los Angeles in 1967.
And this is where the legend really begins. In
just two seasons, 1967 and 1968, he led the nation
in rushing both years. He won the Heisman Trophy
in 1968. The Heisman is the biggest award in
college sports. It's the top of the mountain.
But I want to drill down on how he won it because
sometimes the voting is close, right? It's a
nail biter. Usually it's a debate. There are
regional biases, different opinions. But in 1968,
it wasn't a contest. It was a coronation. He
won the Heisman by the largest margin in history
at that time. But how much? He defeated the runner
-up, Leroy Keyes, by 1 ,750 points. 1 ,750 points.
That's not a win. That's a statistical anomaly.
That's a landslide. Exactly. Everyone knew he
was the best player in the country. And there's
one play from his college days that stands out.
The... Greatest play. This is the 1967 game against
UCLA, the big rivalry game. You have to understand
the stakes here. This wasn't just a game. It
was arguably the biggest game of the 20th century
in college football. USC versus UCLA. Crosstown
rivals. Okay. The winner goes to the Rose Bowl
and probably wins the national title. The stadium
is packed. The whole country is watching. And
the score is tight. USC is down in the fourth
quarter. It's third down and seven. The quarterback
calls a play 23 blast. He hands the ball to Simpson.
Simpson finds a little gap, cuts to the sideline,
just turns on the Jets. And he's gone. 64 yards
for a touchdown. That run tied the game. The
extra point won it. That single play made him
a national icon before he even played down in
the NFL. So he enters the NFL draft in 1969 with
all this hype. He goes to the Buffalo Bills,
drafted first overall. And I think... This is
where the younger generation might lose the context.
They know he was a football player, but I don't
think they realize how good he was. They see
the mugshot, not the highlight reel. He wasn't
just good. He was transformative. But it took
a few years. His first few seasons in Buffalo
were actually a struggle. The coach, John Rauch,
had OJ Simpson. the greatest runner in college
history blocking and catching passes rather than
running. What? It was coaching malpractice. That's
like buying a Ferrari and using it to tow a trailer.
Why would you do that? It baffled everyone. For
three years, people were starting to whisper
that maybe he was a bust, a college phenom who
couldn't cut it in the pros. Oh, wow. But then
the Bills brought in a coach named Lou Saban.
Saban looked at the roster and said, I have O
.J. Simpson. I am going to give him the ball.
And he did. He built the entire offense around
Simpson. In 1973, he did the unthinkable. This
is the big stack. He rushed for 2 ,003 yards
in a single season. He was the first player ever
to break the 2 ,000 -yard mark. And here's where
it gets really interesting, right? Because players
have done that since. Eric Dickerson did it.
Derrick Henry did it recently. But why is OJ's
record different? Why do the football purists
still point to 1973? Because of the math. In
1973, the NFL season was only 14 games long.
Today, it's 17 games. O .J. Simpson ran for over
2 ,000 yards in just 14 games. So his average
per game must be insane. It is. To this day,
he holds the record for the highest rushing yards
per game average in a season. 143 .1 yards per
game. And 143 yards a game. Think about that.
That's a great game for a modern running back.
He was averaging that every single Sunday for
a whole season. That record still stands. That
is insane consistency. And he had that nickname,
The Juice. The Juice. It started as a play on
O .J. Orange's juice. It became a metaphor for
energy, for electricity, for power. And his offensive
line, the guy's blocking form, they leaned into
it. They called themselves The Electric Company.
Because they turn on the juice. It is marketing
gold. It's clever. It's fun. It's catchy. And
that marketing genius didn't stop at the sideline.
This transitions us perfectly to his celebrity
off the field because O .J. wasn't just a football
player. He was, as the sources put it, a colorless
celebrity. That's a crucial term here. What does
colorless mean in this context in the 70s? It
means he was non -threatening to white America.
You have to remember, this is the 1970s. Racial
tensions are still very high. Corporate America
was terrified of alienating white customers by
using black spokespeople. But O .J. was different.
He was handsome, articulate. Always smiling.
He seemed safe. He spoke without slang. He dressed
in suits. He transcended race in a way that very
few public figures had at that point. And Hertz
saw that potential. Hertz rental car. In 1975,
they made him the face of their brand. He was
the first black man to be hired for a major corporate
national ad campaign. We've all seen the clips,
right? OJ running through the airport in the
three -piece suit. Jumping over barriers, people
cheering him on. It was a revolution in advertising.
It solves what marketing experts call the vampire
video problem. The vampire video. I love this
term. Break it down. A vampire video is a commercial
that is so entertaining or funny that you remember
the joke or the celebrity. Yeah. But you forget
the product. The commercial sucks the blood out
of the brand. Got it. But with OJ, the connection
was instant. You saw him running. You thought
speed. You thought efficiency. You thought Hertz.
Their brand awareness skyrocketed by 40 percent.
Profits increased by 50 percent in the first
year alone. So he's conquered sports. He's conquered
Madison Avenue. And then he conquers Hollywood.
He was everywhere. He was in The Towering Inferno.
He was in the acclaimed miniseries Roots, which
was a huge cultural moment. Yes, massive. And,
of course, the Naked Gun movies. As Detective
Nordberg, the guy who's always getting injured.
It's slapstick comedy. He's getting hit with
doors, falling off boats, getting his hand trapped
in a window. It made him even more lovable. He
wasn't the tough guy. He was the goofy, unlucky
guy. It just reinforced that image of him as
a gentle soul. And that image. the unthreatening
nice guy, is what makes this next piece of trivia
so jarring. The producers of The Terminator.
Oh, this is the ultimate what if. It's just chilling
to think about. They considered OJ Simpson for
the title role. The Terminator, the killing machine
from the future. James Cameron and the producers
discussed it seriously. Arnold Schwarzenegger
has confirmed this in interviews. They were looking
for someone physically imposing. But they ultimately
decided against casting O .J. because they thought
he was too nice. Too nice. They didn't think
audiences would believe O .J. Simpson is a remorseless
killer. Man, that ages poorly. It certainly does.
But it shows you just how successfully he had
cultivated that persona. The world saw a teddy
bear. So we have this American hero. Success
on the field, success in Hollywood, success on
Madison Avenue. But underneath all that polish,
there was a much darker current flowing. Section
2. We have to talk about his relationships and
specifically Nicole Brown. This is where the
story shifts from a sports biography to a tragedy.
And we need to look at his personal life. Simpson
was married first to Marguerite Whitley. They
had three children. But there was a tragedy there,
too, which often gets lost in the later noise.
Right. The drowning. That's horrible. In 1979,
their daughter, Erin. drowned in the family pool
just before her second birthday. I can't even
imagine that kind of pain. It's a trauma that
stays with you forever. They divorced in 1979,
but by then, Simpson had already met Nicole Brown.
She was very young when they met, right? She
was 18. She was working as a waitress at a nightclub
called The Daisy in Beverly Hills. OJ was 30,
and he was already a global superstar. So the
power dynamic there is incredibly skewed from
the very start. Massively. He was at the peak
of his fame, and she was an 18 -year -old kid.
They started dating and eventually married in
1985. But the relationship wasn't the fairy tale
it looked like in the glossy photos. No. Not
at all. The source material describes it as fractious
and mutually obsessed. It was volatile. And it
was violent. And this wasn't something that just
came out at the murder trial. It was documented
by the police well before that. This was a known
issue. Yes. The most infamous incident was New
Year's Eve, 1989. Tell us about that night. Police
responded to a 911 call at their home on Rockingham
Avenue. They found Nicole hiding in the bushes
outside the house. In the bushes? She was wearing
only a bra and sweatpants. She was bruised, beaten,
and absolutely terrified. She told the officers
explicitly, he's going to kill me. He's going
to kill me. In 1989, five years before she actually
died. Yes. Simpson fled the scene in his car
before he could be arrested. Later, he pleaded
no contest to spousal abuse. Now, for the listeners
who aren't lawyers, no contest is basically the
same as a guilty plea for sentencing purposes.
Exactly. It means I am not admitting guilt, but
I'm not fighting the charges because the evidence
is overwhelming. It goes on your record as a
conviction. So he has a record of spousal abuse.
Did he lose his Hertz contract? Did NBC fire
him? Did he become a pariah? No. And that is
the shocking part. He essentially got a slap
on the wrist. He got some community service,
a small fine, and was allowed to do his counseling
over the phone. Over the phone. Over the phone.
He kept his contracts. He kept his status. It
really highlights the domestic violence just
wasn't treated with the severity it is today.
It was seen as a private family matter. And that
1989 incident was just. The tip of the iceberg.
It was. Prosecutors later compiled evidence of
62 separate incidents of abusive behavior. 62.
62. Stalking, harassment, public humiliation,
physical violence. It was a pattern of control
and terror. They finally broke up for good in
May 1994. And the source material quotes Nicole
telling friends something chilling. She told
her friends. He's going to kill me and he's going
to get away with it. She predicted her own death
and the outcome. That is heartbreaking. It is.
She knew who he was. She knew his temper and
she knew his influence. And that brings us to
June 1994. Section three, the murders. June 12th,
1994, a Sunday night in Brentwood, Los Angeles.
Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman
were found stabbed to death outside her condo.
We should clarify about Ron Goldman because early
on there were all these disgusting rumors of
an affair, but he was just there doing a favor,
right? He was just the good guy. Correct. He
was a waiter at Mizzaluna, a restaurant where
Nicole had eaten dinner that night. Her mother
had accidentally left her sunglasses behind.
Ron offered to drop them off at Nicole's house
after his shift. Wrong place, wrong time. In
the worst possible way. He walked into a slaughter.
The brutality of the crime scene was shocking.
Simpson became the immediate person of interest.
He had the motive, he had the history of violence,
and he had no alibi for the time of the murders.
But here is a detail that I honestly had forgotten,
or maybe never knew. It's one of those surprising
facts we promised. At the time of the murders,
what was OJ doing professionally? This is bizarre.
He was filming a pilot for NBC, a show called
Frogmen. Fog men, like Navy SEALs. Exactly. It
was an action show, kind of like the A -Team.
O .J. played the leader of a group of former
SEALs who worked out of a surf shop in Malibu.
Okay, so he's playing an action hero. But here
is the eerie detail. For that role, Simpson received
military -style knife training. You are kidding
me. I am not. He was trained in how to use a
knife for stealth kills. And there was a scene
filmed for the pilot. A scene that actually exists
where Simpson's character grabs a woman, holds
a knife to her throat, and threatens her. And
this was never aired. NBC buried it immediately
after the murders. The police actually seized
the footage as part of the investigation to see
if it showed a level of comfort with knives.
It wasn't introduced at trial, but just imagine
the existence of that footage while he's on trial
for a double stabbing. That is deeply unsettling.
It blurs the line between the actor and the reality.
So the murders happen. The police focus on OJ.
They arrange for him to surrender on June 17th.
His lawyers, led by Robert Shapiro, say he will
turn himself in. The police are waiting. The
media is waiting. And he doesn't show. He goes
on the run. And we get the Bronco chase. The
white Ford Bronco. Driven by his best friend
and former teammate, Al Cowlings. OJ is in the
backseat. It's hard to overstate how big this
moment was. This wasn't just news. This was everything.
It interrupted the NBA Finals. Think about that.
The Knicks and the Rockets are playing for a
championship, a huge national event, and NBC
cuts away to show a white SUV driving 35 miles
an hour down the 405 freeway. 95 million viewers
tuned in. 95 million. It was a shared cultural
moment. Domino's Pizza reported record sales
that night because nobody wanted to cook. They
were glued to the TV. People were standing on
overpasses with signs cheering him on, go OJ.
Which is bizarre because inside that car, it
wasn't a victory lap. It was a funeral procession.
Yeah. Exactly. Simpson had a gun to his head.
He was threatening suicide. He was crying. Al
Cowlings was on the phone with 911 screaming,
he's got a gun to his head, back off. And Robert
Kardashian, his friend and lawyer, was reading
that letter on TV. The suicide note. Don't feel
sorry for me. I've had a great life. It really
solidified the feeling for many people watching
that this was the end. They thought they were
watching a man drive to his death, but he didn't
die. He surrendered at his Burtwood estate. The
police took him in, and that set the stage for
Section 4, the trial of the century. The criminal
trial. The people of the state of California
versus Orenthal James Simpson. This is where
the American legal system and American media
culture collided in a way that changed everything.
We had the dream team for the defense. I mean,
what a lineup. Johnny Cochran, Robert Shapiro,
F. Lee Bailey. Alan Tershowitz, Robert Kardashian.
These are the titans of the legal world. They
were charismatic, they were aggressive, and they
were very, very expensive. And for the prosecution,
Marcia Clark and Christopher Darden. The prosecution
felt they had a slam dunk case. I mean, you look
at what they had. They had the DNA evidence putting
Simpson at the scene. They had the victim's blood
in Simpson's Bronco. They had the victim's blood
on Simpson's socks found in his bedroom. And
they had the glove. The glove. One found at the
murder scene, one found at Simpson's estate by
Detective Mark Furman. It seems overwhelming.
It does. But the defense. Yeah. The defense was
masterful at dismantling the narrative. Their
strategy wasn't necessarily to prove OJ was innocent.
It was to prove the investigation was flawed.
They just needed to create reasonable doubt.
And the glove became the symbol of that doubt.
The Christopher Darden decision. To have Simpson
try on the gloves in court, it is widely considered
one of the biggest blunders in prosecutorial
history. I remember the footage so clearly. O
.J. is standing there. He's putting on these
latex gloves first. Then he's tugging at the
leather ones. He's grimacing. He holds his hands
up to the jury like, look, they don't fit. And
Johnny Cochran, in his closing argument, delivers
the line that lived forever. If it doesn't fit,
you must acquit. It's poetry. It's so simple
and memorable. But let's be real for a second.
Why didn't they fit? Scientifically, there are
good reasons. The gloves were leather. They'd
been soaked in blood. They'd been frozen and
thawed for testing. Leather shrinks when it gets
wet and dries. Okay, that makes sense. Plus,
as you said, Simpson was wearing latex gloves
underneath them to preserve the evidence. And
the prosecution argued that Simpson had stopped
taking his arthritis medication, which caused
his hands to swell. So there were logical explanations,
but in a televised trial... Logic doesn't always
win. Visuals win. The jury saw a man who couldn't
put on the murderer's gloves. It looked like
a frame -up. But the real turning point wasn't
the glove, was it? It was the Furman tapes. This
is where the trial pivoted. The defense made
the argument that the LAPD was corrupt and racist,
and therefore they might have planted the evidence.
It was a bold strategy. And they centered that
strategy on Detective Mark Furman, who found
the glove on OJ's property. Exactly. On the stand,
Furman testified under oath that he hadn't used
the N -word in the last 10 years. He presented
himself as a clean cop, just doing his job. He
was lying. He was lying. The defense found tapes,
audio recordings from a screenwriter named Laura
McKinney, who had interviewed Furman for a project
about the LAPD. And on those tapes? In those
tapes, Furman uses the N -word dozens of times.
He boasts about police brutality. He talks about
planting evidence to get convictions. It was
a complete and total bombshell. It destroyed
his credibility on the stand. Utterly. And suddenly,
the defense could argue, if this guy is a racist
and a liar, Maybe he did plant the glove. Maybe
he smeared the blood on the Bronco. It introduced
that sliver of doubt they needed. And you have
to consider the context of Los Angeles in 1995.
This isn't happening in a vacuum. Yeah, absolutely.
This is post -Rodney King. The video of Rodney
King being beaten by police and the subsequent
acquittal of those officers had sparked the L
.A. riots just a few years earlier in 92. The
trust between the black community and the LAPD
was non -existent. So for the jury, which had
a majority of black members, the idea of a police
frame up wasn't a wild conspiracy theory. It
was a lived reality for many. Exactly. Johnny
Cochran tapped into that history. He made the
trial about something bigger than OJ. He made
it about the system. He famously told the jury,
you are the conscience of this community. So
when the verdict came down on October 3rd, 1995,
not guilty. Acquitted on all counts. The jury
deliberated for less than four hours. Four hours
for a trial that lasted almost a year. That implies
they didn't even really debate the evidence they
had made up their minds. It stunned the nation.
And the reaction. Talk about a divided country.
You saw the split screen on the news. Black audiences
in classrooms and offices largely celebrating,
cheering. White audiences staring in shock, crying.
And that reaction wasn't just about OJ, was it?
No. The sources analyzed this deeply. For many
black Americans, the celebration wasn't necessarily
because they thought O .J. was a saint or innocent.
It was a victory against a corrupt system. It
was the first time a rich, famous black defendant
beat the system that usually crushed them. It
was about power. Whereas white Americans just
saw a murderer walking free because he could
afford the best lawyers. It revealed a racial
fault line in America that we are still dealing
with. It changed everything. It birthed modern
reality TV. The Kardashians are literally part
of this story because of Robert Kardashian. It
changed how we look at DNA. It changed how we
talk about domestic violence. It was a cultural
earthquake. It did. But while O .J. walked free
from the criminal court, he wasn't done with
the legal system. And this leads us to Section
5, the civil trial. Right, because the families
of Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman didn't give up.
The Goldman family in particular was relentless.
They sued him for wrongful death. How is a civil
trial different? Why did they think they could
win when the prosecutors with all the resources
of the state failed? Two main reasons. First,
the burden of proof is much lower. In criminal
court, you need beyond a reasonable doubt. That's
like 99 percent certainty. Right. In civil court,
you just need a preponderance of the evidence.
Is it more likely than not that he did it? So
51 percent, a much lower bar to clear. And the
second reason. OJ had to testify. In the criminal
trial, he exercised his Fifth Amendment right
to remain silent. He never took the stand. In
the civil trial, you don't have that option in
the same way. He had to take the stand, and he
did not do well. The plaintiff's lawyers tore
him apart. I remember seeing clips of that. The
infamous Bruno Magli shoes? Yes. The bloody shoe
prints at the scene were from a rare, expensive
brand of Bruno Magli shoes. O .J. swore under
oath he'd never own such ugly -ass shoes. Then
the plaintiffs produced 30 photos of him wearing
those exact shoes at football games and other
events. Oof, that's a bad look. So the verdict
in 1997? The jury found him liable for the deaths.
They ordered him to pay $33 .5 million in damages.
That's a massive number. Did he pay it? He paid
very little of it. He lost his Brentwood home.
His Heisman Trophy was auctioned off. But he
was smart about protecting his assets. He moved
to Florida. Why Florida? Florida has very strong
homestead laws. They protect your primary residence
from being seized in bankruptcy or civil judgments.
And crucially, they couldn't touch his NFL pension,
which paid him about $25 ,000 a month. So he's
legally broke and owes millions, but he's living
in a gated community in Florida playing golf
every day. Precisely. And you can imagine how
infuriating that was for the Goldman family.
They spent the next 30 years chasing every dime
he made. That is frustrating, to say the least.
But then things get really bizarre. In 2006,
OJ decides to participate in a book project.
And I did it. I still can't believe this was
real. He writes a book, or has it ghostwritten
by Pablo Fernandez, describing hypothetically
how he would have committed the murders. It is
one of the most ill -conceived, narcissistic,
and just... plain weird PR moves in history.
He claimed he was doing for his kids that it
was blood money for them. The public outcry was
so intense that the publisher, Regan Books, a
division of HarperCollins, canceled the release.
Judith Regan, the publisher, actually lost her
job and her TV show over it. But then in a twist
of legal irony, the Goldman family stepped in.
They sued for the rights to the book. They argued
that the manuscript was an asset. And since O
.J. owed them millions, they should own the asset.
It was a brilliant legal move. And the court
agreed. So the Goldmans own the book about their
son's murder written by the man they believe
killed him. And they decided to publish it. But
they changed the cover. This is brilliant. The
title is If I Did It. But on the cover, the word
if is tiny. It's almost invisible, hidden inside
the letter I. So when you look at the book on
a shelf, it just reads, I did I .T. Confessions
of the Killer. That is next level petty, and
I respect it. And the content of the book, does
he confess? Not explicitly. He describes a hypothetical
accomplice he calls Charlie. He describes going
to the house. He describes a confrontation. But
then, right when the violence starts, he writes
that he blacked out. Blacked out. Convenient.
Very. But the details leading up to the blackout,
the descriptions of the dog, the layout of the
condo, the arguments are so specific that many
people view it as a thinly veiled confession.
So he's publicly shamed, he's financially squeezed,
but he's free. Until Las Vegas. Section 6. The
Fall. 2007. This is the moment where karma or
fate or just plain bad judgment finally caught
up with him. That happened in Vegas. Simpson
found out that some sports memorabilia dealers
were selling items that he claimed belonged to
him. Personal photos, his Hall of Fame certificate,
things he said were stolen from him years ago.
So he decided to take them back. But he didn't
call the police. He didn't call a lawyer. He
rounded up a posse of guys, some he barely knew,
and stormed into a hotel room at the Palace Station
Hotel to confront them. And the kicker? They
brought guns. Simpson denied bringing the guns
or knowing about them. But the audio recording,
because one of the guys in the room was secretly
recording the whole thing, caught Simpson shouting
orders, don't let nobody out of this room. And
two of the men with him had handguns. He was
charged with armed robbery and kidnapping. Kidnapping
seems extreme, but under Nevada law, if you can
find someone against their will, even for a short
time during the commission of another felony,
it can be kidnapping. So the trial happens in
2008. And on October 3rd, 2008, exactly 13 years
to the day after his acquittal in the murder
trial, he was found guilty on all charges. That
timing is script -worthy. You couldn't make that
up. It feels like the universe balancing the
scales. And the sentence was heavy. The judge,
Jackie Glass, sentenced him to 33 years in prison.
33 years for stealing some memorabilia. Many
people, including legal experts cited in our
sources, felt this was payback. for 1995. The
judge denied it, of course. She said it was about
the violence and the guns. But a 33 -year sentence
for a robbery where no one was seriously hurt
and he was retrieving his own property, it felt
like the justice system was finally getting its
pound of flesh. So he goes to prison, Lovelock
Correctional Center in Nevada. What was his life
like there? He was inmate. Hashtag 1027820. By
all accounts, he was a model prisoner. He worked
as a gym janitor wiping down equipment. He coached
the prison softball teams. He served nine years
before being granted parole in 2017. So he gets
out. He's an old man now. Section 7. The final
years. He moved to a gated community in Las Vegas
near a golf course. And strangely, he became
active on Twitter. I remember this. He posted
that first video. Hello, Twitter world. This
is yours truly. It was so bizarre. It was surreal.
He would just post these short videos giving
his takes on fantasy football or politics. It
was like he was trying to reclaim that juice
persona, acting like the lovable, charming uncle
again. But every time he posted, the comments
were flooded with reminders of the murders. The
shadow never, ever left him. And there was speculation
about his health, right? Specifically his brain.
Yes. CTE, chronic traumatic encephalopathy, the
brain disease caused by repeated head trauma,
common in football players. Dr. Bennett Omalu,
the doctor who discovered CTE and was the subject
of the movie Concussion, said he would bet his
medical license that OJ had it. I mean, running
back in the 70s, he took thousands of hits to
the head. And the helmets back then were nothing
like they are today. Simpson even suspected it
himself. He talked about memory loss and erratic
behavior. We know that CTE can cause aggression,
poor impulse control, depression. It doesn't
excuse murder, obviously. No, absolutely not.
But it adds another layer to the tragedy. It
raises the question, how much of his behavior
was the man and how much was the damage from
the game that made him famous? But we will never
know for sure. After he died, his family refused
to have his brain studied. He died in April 2024,
prostate cancer. He was 76. He died surrounded
by his children and grandchildren. And there
were reports that everyone had to sign NDAs to
visit him at the end. That was the report. Even
in death, there was this layer of legal secrecy
and protection. The control was there until the
very end. And the reaction to his death? Yeah.
It was telling. Silence. The NFL released no
official statement. The Buffalo Bills, the 49ers,
USC, the institutions that built their history
on his back. They said nothing. The Heisman Trust
put out a small statement, but the teams that
made him, nothing. They just wanted it to go
away. They did. But the Goldman family released
a statement that I think sums it up perfectly.
They said, the hope for true accountability has
ended. Powerful. Because for them, it was never
really over. They acknowledged that even with
the civil judgment, justice was never really
served in their eyes. The money was never fully
paid with interest. The dead had ballooned to
over $100 million. The confession never came.
So what does this all mean? We're at the outro
now. How do we sum up a life like O .J. Simpson?
It's a tragedy of Shakespearean proportions.
You have the rise from poverty and leg braces
to the absolute pinnacle of American success,
the colorless icon who is loved by everyone,
and then the descent into violence, the racial
polarization of the trial, and the... bizarre,
pathetic end in a Vegas prison and a Twitter
account. He went from being a symbol of limitless
potential to a symbol of division and domestic
abuse. Exactly. And there's a final thought from
the source material that really stuck with me.
In his hometown of San Francisco, there was a
mural in the Potrero Hill projects that featured
him in his 49ers uniform. A hometown hero. But
over the years after the trial. People kept vandalizing
it. They painted devil horns on him. They threw
paint at it. And eventually, the city just painted
him out of the mural entirely. They replaced
him with someone else. And that raises the question
for all of us. When a legacy is this tarnished,
does the greatness of the athletic achievement
disappear? Can you separate the 2 ,000 yards
from the double murder? Or does the crime become
the ink that blacks out everything else? That
is a question I think we'll be debating for a
very long time. Indeed. Before we go, I want
to encourage you to look up one thing. Google
the book cover for If I Did It, the one published
by the Goldman family. Look at how they hid the
word if. It is a masterclass in visual storytelling
and a final defiant act by a grieving family.
It really is a powerful piece of design. Thanks
for diving deep with us. We'll see you next time.