OJ Simpson dead aged 76 after losing battle with cancer
The announcement was made on his official Twitter account (Picture: Getty/Rex)
Former American football star OJ Simpson has died at the age of 76 after a battle with cancer.
His official Twitter account posted: ‘On April 10th, our father, Orenthal James Simpson, succumbed to his battle with cancer. He was surrounded by his children and grandchildren.
‘During this time of transition, his family asks that you please respect their wishes for privacy and grace.’
The 76-year-old was previously said to be undergoing chemotherapy amid a battle with prostate cancer.
He famously tried on the leather gloves prosecutors claimed he wore during the murders (Picture: Reuters)
Despite commanding an impressive football career, Simpson is most known for being accused of murdering his former partner Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ronald Goldman.
The trial transfixed America. In the White House, President Bill Clinton left the Oval Office and watched the verdict on his secretary’s TV.
Many Black Americans celebrated his acquittal, seeing Simpson as the victim of bigoted police. Many white Americans were appalled by his exoneration.
Simpson’s legal team included prominent criminal defense lawyers Johnnie Cochran, Alan Dershowitz and F. Lee Bailey, who often out-maneuvered the prosecution.
Prosecutors committed a memorable blunder when they directed Simpson to try on a pair of blood-stained gloves found at the murder scene, confident they would fit perfectly and show he was the killer.
In a highly theatrical demonstration, Simpson struggled to put on the gloves and indicated to the jury they did not fit.
Timeline of Nicole Brown Simpson's murder and OJ Simpson's trial
June 12, 1994
10pm: Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman are murdered outside of Brown’s LA home.
11pm: OJ Simpson rides to the airport, and takes off to Chicago around 11:45pm
June 13, 1994
The bodies of Nicole and Ron are discovered after Nicole’s dog leads a neighbor to the scene.
Police arrive to tell Simpson that his ex-wife has died, but instead find a blood-stained Bronco and bloody glove that matches one found by Ron’s body – making OJ a suspect.
June 17, 1994
The Bronco chase unfolds as OJ tries to flee arrest. He’s charged that same day. 95 million people watched the pursuit on television.
June 15, 1995
Halfway through a lengthy trial, OJ tries on the famous leather gloves. His lawyer famously said ‘If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.’
October 3, 1995
Delivering the trial’s most famous words, Cochran referred to the gloves in closing arguments to jurors with a rhyme: ‘If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit.’
Dershowitz later called the prosecution decision to ask Simpson to try on the gloves ‘the greatest legal blunder of the 20th century.’
However, he was found liable for both deaths in a 1997 civil lawsuit.
Simpson became involved in further legal issues and was sentenced to 33 years in prison after being found guilty of a Las Vegas robbery, but was released in 2017 after serving almost nine years behind bars.
The photo of OJ getting arrested at his LA home was broadcast across the world (Picture: Shutterstock)
In years following Nicole and Ron’s murders, a few of OJ’s actions raised eyebrows – including when he laughed hysterically as he recalled seeing his wife Nicole Brown’s nearly-decapitated corpse moments after she was murdered.
Going into extremely graphic detail while dissolving into laughter, O.J. continued: ‘I hate to say this, I don’t think any two people could have been murdered the way they were without being covered in blood.’
He earlier admitted bringing a knife out of his Ford Bronco moments before the killing, claiming he kept the weapon in his car for protection against the ‘crazies’ of L.A.
Simpson had previously revealed that he had battled cancer and had undergone treatment, explaining that he ‘beat it’ and was ‘happy and healthy’.
In 2020, it was revealed OJ’s former wife Nicole had kept a diary of the physical abuse she suffered from him.
Brown wrote about first being hit by Simpson in 1978, writing in her diary that he ‘threw me on floor hit me kicked me’ and, after going to a hotel, ’continued to beat me for hours as I kept crawling for the door’.
Nicole’s sister Tanya Brown says in the film: ‘Maybe she knew this was her destiny and maybe subconsciously she knew something was going to happen. Maybe that’s why she kept real detailed diary entries.’
OJ Simpson starts laughing during recollection of Nicole Brown Simpson's death
In an incident attributed to 1988, Brown wrote that her husband ‘put bruises on my arm and backs’, while an entry in 1986 read: ‘(Simpson) beat me up so bad at home. Tore my blue sweater and blue socks completely off me. Went to hospital on Wilshire, pretended it was a bicycle accident.’
The documentary also features LAPD officer John Edwards recalling a visit to Simpson’s house in 1989 after receiving a 911 call from Brown.
He says: ‘A woman came running out, a tall blonde woman, and she was yelling “he’s gonna kill me”. I said who? She said:
“OJ”. I said “OJ Simpson?” She said: “You’ve been up here eight times already and you’ve done nothing about it.”’
Edwards testified during Simpson’s murder trial that Brown ‘collapsed on me’ and had a cut on her upper lip, a swollen forehead and a black eye.
Simpson was arrested for spousal battery and later pleaded no contest to the charges.
Brown filed for divorce three years later in 1992 but they got back together, and in 1993, she made another 911 call, saying she was scared Simpson was ‘going to beat the s*** out of me’.
Brown’s diary entries and statements she made to family and friends about the alleged domestic violence were planned to be presented in the trial, but were ruled inadmissible as hearsay as Brown could not be cross-examined.
OJ was born in San Francisco on July 9, 1947, and went on to become one of the most celebrated football players of all time – a legacy which was marred by his criminality.
During nine seasons for the Buffalo Bills and two for the San Francisco 49ers, Simpson became one of the greatest ball carriers in NFL history.
In 1973, he became the first NFL player to rush for more than 2,000 yards in a season. He retired in 1979.
Simpson also became an advertising pitchman, best known for years of TV commercials for Hertz rental cars.
He had three children with his first wife, Marguerite – one of whom died from drowning while young. He went on to have two more with his second wife, Nicole Brown.
He went on trial in 1994 accused of killing his ex-wife and new partner (Picture: AFP)
Nicole and Ron were brutally murdered outside of their LA home (Picture: Shutterstock)
Credit: metro
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