Orenthal James, known as O.J. Simpson, the decorated football superstar and Hollywood actor who was acquitted of charges that he killed his former wife and her friend but later found liable in a separate civil trial has died at 76 years.
The family announced on Simpson’s official X account that he died Wednesday of prostate cancer, but another official said he died in Las Vegas on Thursday.
Simpson earned fame, fortune and adulation through football and show business, but his legacy was forever changed by the June 1994 knife slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman in Los Angeles.
He was later found liable for the deaths in a separate civil case, and then served nine years in prison on unrelated charges.
Imprisoned at 61, he served nine years in a remote Nevada prison, including a stint as a gym janitor. He wasn’t contrite when he released on parole in October 2017.
The parole board heard him insist yet again that he was only trying to retrieve memorabilia and heirlooms stolen from him after his Los Angeles criminal trial.
