O.J. Simpson, the decorated football superstar and Hollywood actor who was acquitted of charges he killed his ex wife and her friend but later found liable in a separate civil trial, has died. He was 76.
Orenthal James Simpson was a beloved college football star in the late 1960s when he played for the University of Southern California, helping the team win the national championship his first year there. A year later in 1968, he won the Heisman Trophy.
Simpson went on to play 11 NFL seasons, nine of them with the Buffalo Bills, where he became known as “The Juice” on an offensive line known as “The Electric Company.”
While Simpson earned fame, fortune and adulation through football and show business — starring in several Hollywood movies and commercials — his legacy was forever tainted by the slaying of his second wife Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman in Los Angeles in 1994.
A jury found him not guilty of murder in the "trial of the century," but a separate civil trial jury found him liable for the deaths and he was ordered to pay the families of Brown and Goldman $33.5 million.
A decade later, still plagued by legal woes, Simpson was convicted of armed robbery and other felonies when he led a group of armed men to confront two sports memorabilia dealers in a cramped Las Vegas hotel room. He served nine year in prison before being released on parole in October 2017.
Simpson is survived by five children: sons Jason and Aaren and daughter Arnelle from his first marriage; and son Justin and daughter Sydney from his marriage to Nicole Brown Simpson.