How popular was O.J. Simpson before the incident?
Posted by BeneficialSide2335@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 161 comments
My English is not good, so I used a translator.
I heard he was quite popular before the incident. I've seen the movie he starred in. But I don't know how much he was in terms of sports, which is his main job other than movies. How popular was he?
CH11DW@reddit
James Cameron consider casting him as the terminator, but thought he was so nice that nobody would believe he was a killer.
Wolfeman0101@reddit
There is no proof this is true by the way. It's just one of those things people say.
t-poke@reddit
Then there's the Seinfeld episode where Elaine is dating somebody named Joel Rifkin (same name as a serial killer in NYC) so she suggests she change his name to OJ so he wouldn't share his name with a murderer.
7 months later...
rakfocus@reddit
Bruh watching that episode and googling it realizing that the episode 2as made before the OJ trial made it the funniest thing to watch đ¤Łđ¤Łđ¤Ł
sandbagger45@reddit
I have seen every episode of Seinfeld multiple times and just found this out recently. I was too young when I was on TV. I remember the last season vaguely but I watched reruns as a teenager.
SculpinIPAlcoholic@reddit
Vigo Morrison broke his toe when he kicked that helmet.
comish4lif@reddit
By "incident" - do you mean when he murdered 2 people?
swahappycat@reddit
Typical privileged redditor. OJ was found not guilty. Smh.
I_Am_No_One_123@reddit
Simpson was found liable in the civil trial and ordered to pay $33 million to the families. He was also found guilty of kidnapping (+12 other charges) and served 9 years in prison for an incident re: robbing a sports memorabilia dealer at gun point in a Las Vegas hotel.
swahappycat@reddit
Thank you for agreeing with me that OJ didn't murder anyone
I_Am_No_One_123@reddit
He was found not guilty in the criminal case, but proven liable in the civil proceedings. It doesn't mean he didn't murder the 2 victims. Only that the defense didn't prove its case.
swahappycat@reddit
Are you saying this somehow proves he did murder people? What is the point you are trying to make in responding to my comments?
I_Am_No_One_123@reddit
A civil court jury found Simpson liable for the wrongful deaths of 2 people. The verdict held him responsible for their deaths and required him to pay financial damages instead of facing prison time.
swahappycat@reddit
Your reading comprehension needs work bro. Go back to the top comment and read it again. Did you do it? Then you can see we arent talking about wrongful death, we talking about murder, which OJ is innocent of. Try reading a book again one of these days.
I_Am_No_One_123@reddit
Not guilty isn't the same as innocent. Try reading a book without moving your lips "bro".
swahappycat@reddit
Wow reading compression is not your strong suit lol!! We already went over this. Remember the presumption of innocence? OJ is innocent until found guilty, so not guilty means he is innocent! Stop being a dumdum sore loser, and go back to school brosef!
swahappycat@reddit
Are you a attorney?
Successful-Cut7999@reddit
OJ fans ALWAYS write like this, using "smh".
swahappycat@reddit
Way to stay on topic cracker.
MyUsername2459@reddit
He killed her. He avoided criminal liability through expensive lawyers.
He even wrote a book bragging about it.
He was found liable for her death and spent the rest of his life avoiding collections on the debt he owed to their family for killing them.
swahappycat@reddit
Maybe, but legally he's innocent of murder.
Melora_T_Rex714@reddit
Which we all know was a travesty.
Suspicious-Voice9589@reddit
It wasn't like this was a random, out of character event either. He abused his wife for years and murdered her shortly after she finally managed to leave the relationship.
M_Looka@reddit
...Whatever happened there...
themaddylou@reddit
Right? He MURDERED TWO PEOPLE. I realize thereâs a language barrier for OP, but letâs not down play what âthe incidentâ was. Actual murder.
Efficient-Panic3506@reddit
The fact that people still know who O.J. Simpson is 30+ years later isn't because of the murders alone. He was already one of the most recognizable people in America before them.
SculpinIPAlcoholic@reddit
He was about as popular and recognizable as Shaq is now.
lifeofGuacmole@reddit
Thatâs a great comparison. OJ had such a charming personality. I donât know if it was as I remember, but he seemed to be the first black NFL commentator. He was the color guy who explained the game from an inside POV. He was warm, funny, and exuded charm. He had a lot of sponsors and commercial endeavors. Not like what is available today. But there were several big brands. Hertz rentals (great commercials), Chevy, an Orange Juice brand, Wheaties, a few others. There were still enclaves of predominantly white neighborhoods, he was welcomed into one of the wealthiest ones. People wanted to be seen with him. It was a shock to me to hear he was abusing his wife. Not OJ. After the trial and acquittal, it was as if he shed the skin of that personality. I think if we heard Shaq was beating on his wife, itâd have a similar gut punch.
Physical-Incident553@reddit
I remember him leaping over baggage carousel or something like it in a Hertz commercial (I'm early Gen X so I saw him a lot on TV).
PutEmOnTheTable@reddit
Thats a great comparison. OJ took every acting and commercial opportunity thrown at him.
GudsIdiot@reddit
Even moreso. He was in advertising, yes, but he also did sports commentary and 1 ranked movies at the time. He had transitioned into being a full entertainment powerhouse. Additionally, as one of the richest, most incorporated into Hollywood, Black media legends, he represented the hopes of a lot of Black people in America. This especially was true after the Rodney King attack that represented one of the first video recorded savage police attacks on an unarmed Black civilian. This incident sparked a full riot in LA after (iirc) in the police not being held accountable for their actions.
srm775@reddit
Shaq does commentary for the NBA and he did commentary for NCAA March madness
loftychicago@reddit
OJ was much more ubiquitous than Shaq, and that was long before social media and infinite numbers of cable channels.
GudsIdiot@reddit
Exactly. Not to put down the accomplishments of Shaq, but we are talking about someone youâd see two or more times a week on TV in an age when that was a hell of a lot of time in front of a majority of Americans.
srm775@reddit
I dunno, I see shaq on tv all of the time, but I watch a lot of sports so maybe Iâm biased.
Bonch_and_Clyde@reddit
The difference is the proportion of people watching any one channel. Nowadays there's the internet and tons of different streaming options. People separate into their own little niches. Back then there were handful of channels so everyone watched the same few things.
Bootmacher@reddit
The General and Icy Hot commercials.
Murdy2020@reddit
There were less media outlets, so if you watched tv, there was a good chance you'd encounter the biggest stats than today when viewership is more fragmented.
optigrabz@reddit
And OJ was good. I am not going to say he was amazing but I would say he is definitely in the top 1% of athletes turned entertainers as far as talent goes.
HarlanCrest@reddit
That comparison actually makes it easier to understand. Being known from sports, ads, TV, and just general pop culture puts it in a different perspective. It sounds like he was not just famous in football circles, but a household name.
AllPurposeOfficial@reddit
Is the incident youâre referring to when he murdered those people?
Pablo_is_on_Reddit@reddit
As a kid during that time who didn't follow sports, I was aware that he was some kind of athlete. I mainly knew him from the Naked Gun movies. It was strange to me that the guy who played Nordberg was getting so much attention.
nostrademons@reddit
You're getting pretty good answers here, but it's worth remembering the dates of his career. He played football from 1968-1979, a lot of his key TV and movie roles were in the 70s and 80s, and The Terminator came out in 1984. His sports commentator roles ran from 1978-1985. He had only a handful of cameo roles throughout the 80s. The murder happened in 1994.
As a Millennial watching the trial from middle school, I had some name recognition for OJ Simpson, but basically thought of him as a Boomer / Gen-X figure that was popular with my parents' generation. I had basically no familiarity with his work himself, because most of it happened before I was born and the remainder when I was in preschool. So it's worth keeping that in mind. Any Boomer or Gen-Xer will know who he was, because he was everywhere. Younger generations, not so much.
TheBimpo@reddit
Imagine somebody like Charles Barkley or Shaquille OâNeal murdering two people. He was an icon.
jjmenace@reddit
It was also the trial of the century because it was LA and was 3 years after the acquittals of the police officers that beat Rodney King and the LA Riots. This is why there was a lot of OJ support in the black communities.
PlayingDoomOnAGPS@reddit
Happening in LA, coming off the Rodney King happenings, an extremely famous athlete, the dramatic low speed chase, the comically inept police, OJ's flamboyant defense attorneys, prosecutors who couldn't find their way out of a paper bag with a map and a flashlight, a judge who had no control and let his courtroom become a circus, while cable news was really coming into its own.... It was just a perfect storm for a big sensational trial.
Successful-Cut7999@reddit
also a jury full of ignorant idiots who flatly admitted that nicole being beaten wasn't a big deal because women must learn their place and that they would clock off during the "dna stuff" because they couldn't understand it
JakeBarnes12@reddit
Some might call them... moon rocks.
jjmenace@reddit
Adding to the circus...Kato Kaelin!
TheBimpo@reddit
Thatâs a good point. There were so many factors that fed into the scale of the trial. It was a massive touchstone in American culture.
jjmenace@reddit
Which all led to further division. White people showing up to watch the downfall of a rich black man who killed a white woman (and man) and a black communities wanting to support a black man even though all the evidence showed he did it. I find it interesting how the black community eventually changed their mind in this over time.
Biff2019@reddit
The "incident"? This is how you chose to describe the brutal murder of two people? Wow.
voteblue18@reddit
Cut the guy some slack, he said English isnât good. Itâs also not really an offensive use of the term.
Help1Ted@reddit
Extremely popular! He played in the NFL and was a huge star.
kearneycation@reddit
He was also an actor who appeared in a bunch of movies, notably the Naked Gun trilogy. And he was funny in them! Shame about the murders .
hnglmkrnglbrry@reddit
The opening scene of OJ in Naked Gun is one of the funniest movie scenes I've ever seen. I'm smiling just thinking about it
AsainGlockgirl99@reddit
I think the "naked gun" is the only movie I have genuinely laughed the whole time.
ATaxiNumber1729@reddit
I love you too, Nordberg
TheMuffler42069@reddit
Very
knightni73@reddit
He was a TV Renaissance man. Commentating, commercials, movies, charity appearances. Anywhere there was a buck to be had, he was there. Shaq is a great comparison.
ndubitably@reddit
Granted it isn't a 1 to 1 comparison, but to keep it fairly simple, I'll compare him to a modern day Tom Brady. Very successful American Football athlete, retired, now appearing here and there in TV shows and movies.
Bootmacher@reddit
OJ was an actual actor, though. He wasn't making cameos. He's closer to Terry Crews or Michael Strahan, sticking to NFL examples.
WrongdoerConsistent6@reddit
Except OJ had a personality and was charming in public, although we know now that he had a horrible temper and was an accusative dose. Tom Brady is a weirdo robot person
arkensto@reddit
I think NFL QBs and other star athletes are programmed like that. They are highly trained and coached on how to speak to the public so that they don't create any "distractions" for their teams. This is why they are often cliche machines.
sleeplessaddict@reddit
Tom Brady is still an extreme example of that. Dude retired so that he could be with his family, and then unretired, which resulted in him losing his family. He had a literal billionaire wife and several kids and the man picked football over them
optigrabz@reddit
I donât want to give OJ a pass- but CTE and medical problems football players have after suffering too many concussions might have had a large influence.
Full_Mission7183@reddit
How many Super Bowls has Buffalo won?
If he is a recent QB it is Peyton Manning, because, like Peyton, OJ was in about every other commercial on the television.
ndubitably@reddit
Peyton is also a good alternative, as are the Kelces, Gronk, or Marshawn Lynch. There are quite a few options to get the point across.
arkensto@reddit
Peyton would be a good example if he was also in popular movies every year, as opposed to the occasional tv cameo.
IMDB: OJ Simpson
Additional-Ending@reddit
How many times have I fucked your mom? More times than your father, but the mailman is leading the way.
Full_Mission7183@reddit
Wide right.
optigrabz@reddit
In earlier days of NFL football running was more highlighted. OJ led the NFL in running yards in 1972, 1973, 1975, and 1976. This was after winning a college national championship and also winning the Heisman football award for being the best college player. He was a huge sports icon.
knightni73@reddit
He was an NFL Commentator as well.
houdini31@reddit
He was in movies, he was on TV all the time-super popular and had a classiness about him but that all turned out to be BS.
enigmanaught@reddit
Iâd say before the Cosby Show came out, he was on the level with Bill Cosby. Cosby had some pretty popular comedy albums, and been on some pretty popular TV shows, but OJ was right there with him, plus doing football commentary. OJâs IMDB list is almost as long as Cosby, plus he also had the sports fame. It was pretty much as shocking as Cosbyâs downfall.
cowgrly@reddit
You can watch any of the Netflix or other documentaries, they do an excellent job of describing him. He was an incredible athlete and popular celebrity, people loved him. We didn't know he was beating his wife, of course.
Then he killed his ex wife, the mother of his kids and an innocent man who he didn't even know. He went on to lie about it, cost millions in taxpayer dollars to attempt to prosecute then created a racial issue out of a case by implying his innocent verdict would (or even could) make up for other people falsely convicted. He did nothing to help anyone but himself. He had actually been called a sellout for years for his lack of connection to African Americans , yet he called on them to demand justice for him.
After being found not guilty, he lost a civil case w the victims but lied during the settlement and hid his assets. He continued to evade them and ended up dying in jail.
The incident was who he really was, America just hadn't seen it before.
wwb_99@reddit
All generally accurate, but he did get out before he died.
AnatidaephobiaAnon@reddit
The night of the police chase my mom came downstairs where my dad and I were watching it and she asked what we were watching. He told her and she said "The actor?". She knew he was a football player, but she remembered him the most from his time as an actor and on Hertz rental car commercials.
It would be the same as if Shaq, Charles Barkley or The Rock were involved in the same thing. They were previous athletes, but they have taken on entirely new personas after the career that established them.
ExternalTelevision75@reddit
Iâd never heard of him before the bronco runâŚ. 49y/o female
Ms-Metal@reddit
Literally everybody knew his name. I don't follow any sports, I don't follow football at all, I don't even understand football and I've never watched it in my life even on you who he was. It was absolutely a top-tier celebrity.
lantana98@reddit
He was practically an icon. He also appeared in commercials and was thought to be a real likeable, nice guy.
jeremiah1142@reddit
The JUICE.
PastNefariousness188@reddit
He had been retired and out of the limelight for several years before the incident. People knew who he was, but he wasn't necessarily an 'active' celebrity, if that makes sense. He was a sports figure people thought of nostalgically as popular in the past.
reblynn2012@reddit
Very. And beloved.
cmcglinchy@reddit
He was one of the most famous football players of the 70s.
SpiceEarl@reddit
Simpson did television ads for Hertz car rental, which was the largest car rental agency in the US. He also co-starred in the Naked Gun movies. The most recent Naked Gun movie, with Liam Neeson, even has a gag that makes fun of it.
cwcam86@reddit
If OJ ran for president he would've had a good shot at winning before he killed his wife.
Tacoshortage@reddit
"The Juice" was a well known, beloved Celebrity. He was in movies, TV commercials and everyone liked him.
SabresBills69@reddit
he was high popularity in the 70s and 80s in terms of well known sports celebrities who you would see in commercials and on TV. he was one of the early success stories in sports athlete and TV advertising money.
optigrabz@reddit
Non-Americans and younger folks might be interested to learn about this large OJ related event surrounding his crime. During an NBA basketball finals game 5 between Houston and New York the coverage switched to a police chase where OJ was running from police in a car driven by his friend. The police chase lasted almost 2 hours. This was a huge pop culture event in American history. Many people watched the chase. This made his trial even more interesting for Americans,
ScatterTheReeds@reddit
Very
He was (one of) Americaâs heroes. People loved him. Oldsters like me remember him jumping over the hurdles in that car rental comm. Thereâs so much more than that, though.Â
SadExercises420@reddit
I Was 13 when he went on the bronco chase and I had never heard of him, but I didnât follow footballÂ
AnotherPint@reddit
He starred in the Naked Gun comedy movies with Leslie Nielsen. He was the face of Hertz Rent-a-Car for many years, flying through airports. You didnât have to follow football to know Simpson was a cultural fixture.
loftychicago@reddit
He was in Roots.
bmiller218@reddit
He hosted Saturday Night Live in 1978.
pikkdogs@reddit
Was a big sports star. Fairly famous.
thisemmereffer@reddit
I dont think there are any modern day athletes that can compare to how popular oj was during and in the years right after his football career. Think like babe Ruth but with broader appeal and more media coverage. Michael Jordan in his bulls days, with a kinder public image and during/in the wake of the civil rights movement. The top athlete for boomers to admire in their teens and 20s. Nowadays media's got more options of what to watch, you can sit and watch the cup stacking championships on your phone, back then everyone was getting blasted with oj simpson on the only tv in the house. He had been retired for some time when he murdered those people but most people who were conscious in the 70s still remembered him as a superstar. Theres some good documentaries about him that explain it better than anyone can in the comments.
Searcach@reddit
Soooo popular. He just seemed so genial, could do comedy. I knew heâd been a football star, but I wasnât really into sports.
Additional-Ending@reddit
His popularity was decreasing and nobody really ever thought of him at the time of the murders.
jsmeeker@reddit
Very popular as a player. He was pretty damn good playing the game
After his playing days, he made the transition to TV media as broadcaster/analyst. He did well there. He was also in various TV commercials as a pitchman. And he got into acting
He was very well known.
TheBimpo@reddit
He wasnât just âpretty damn goodâ, he is still arguably the greatest running back of all time.
CNYMetroStar@reddit
Guy made a generation of Bills fans (my dad is one of them) and was probably one of the most recognizable athletes in pop culture
madogvelkor@reddit
He was very popular, even if you didn't follow sports he had been in a lot of movies in the 70s and 80s.Â
caf61@reddit
This. I never watched sports and I was very aware of him. Loved watching him run through airports in his Hertz commercials.
Bearbearblues@reddit
He was incredibly popular. I see people comparing him to other sports stars, but he was much more than that because he successfully crossed over into other media.
The closest I could think of is imagine if one of the Manning brothers started acting in popular comedies as a sidekick after already being well known for funny commercials. Not just cameos but acting in say movies like Anchor Man. So they became even more popular is likable guys. And then they murder someone. That was OJ.
Walleye_Juan@reddit
Why are you referring to it as an incident? It was a double homicide. Fuck OJ
Imaginary_Smile_7896@reddit
OJ wasn't at the height of his fame, which was the 1970s, but he was still very well known at the time of the murders.
During his football career, OJ was probably one of the most popular athletes of his era, and he was an absolutely phenomenal running back. Probably one of the best in league history. He was the first ever to run for over 2,000 yards in a single season, which was particularly impressive because NLF seasons were shorter back then.
After football, he was one of NBC's upper tier color commentators for football games. I wouldn't have called him a major Hollywood actor, but he appeared in enough films and TV commercials that even people who didn't watch much football probably recognized him.
HVAC_instructor@reddit
I'll just say that after the incident he got a whole lot blacker in many Americans mind. He was everywhere and people loved him. Then the murders and poof he's a black guy again.
wifespissed@reddit
Very.
dantemortemalizar@reddit
The âincidentâ?
CB_Chuckles@reddit
He was extremely popular. My father was a part-time grad student at USC, when OJ was a player. He knew and still knows very little about football, but even he knew who OJ was. The man was literally a household name that everyone knew of.
LQNova@reddit
He was very skilled as an athlete, and still popular from tv and movies afterward. But he was quickly fading into obscurity at the time he murdered his wife and an unfortunate bystander.
I_Owe_Suzanner@reddit
He was very popular, one of the most likable people in America. The modern equivalent to OJ Simpson is "The Rock" Dwayne Johnson, a built, former athlete turned actor. Imagine The Rock kills his ex-wife and a waiter
blipsman@reddit
He was like Charles Barkley or Shaq today
VinceP312@reddit
I was in my 20s during the trial. I can't recall any public negativity about him prior to the murders.
He even had a comedy actor career after football.
HaiKarate@reddit
More popular in the 70's, at the peak of his football career.
But he was also popular in the Naked Gun movies of the 80's.
Next_Ad_4165@reddit
Super popular. Â
MacaroonSad8860@reddit
so popular he could get away with murder
jesuspoopmonster@reddit
The police tampering and mishandling evidence, the prosecution making major mistakes and the racial tensions in the are were also big factors
MacaroonSad8860@reddit
I know I was joking
msabeln@reddit
He actually was an actor before being a professional football player.
historyhill@reddit
ESPN actually has a multipart documentary about OJ Simpson that really breaks the various aspects of this case down: his popularity and absolute skill as a player (it's important to remember that he wasn't just another NFL player, he was probably one of the most recognizable players at his peak); racism in America; how sexism and DV was excused or minimized; etc.Â
wekilledbambi03@reddit
He was a very famous athlete and was taking acting roles in movies after he stopped playing.
My favorite thing about his whole situation was from a Seinfeld episode. Elaine is dating a man named Joel Rifkin. Joel Rifkin was the name of a serial killer in New York. So she is trying to convince him to change his name. She goes through possible name changes and then says "OJ! Please change your name to OJ". Seven months after the episode aired was the murder.
TheTree-43@reddit
He had one of the most impressive seasons an NFL running back has ever or will ever have, won an mvp and was inducted into the hall of fame
bmiller218@reddit
And the defenses knew it would be OJ running the ball.
TheTree-43@reddit
the defenses knew the glove wouldn't fit
Temporary-Boot-2247@reddit
So popular that old women would shout âgo OJ go!â to him in support as he trotted through airports
CelebrationFar1351@reddit
He was a co-star in âAce Ventura: Pet Detectiveâ, one of the most lauded crime dramas of the time. So he was quite popular.
offplanetjanet@reddit
He was The Juice
sean8877@reddit
Most people like Nordberg before the incident
219_Infinity@reddit
He was the man on the football field
freshly-stabbed@reddit
He was so popular in the 70s and early 80s that there are comic books where two facing pages both have ads featuring him. You couldnât read one without seeing his ads for Dingo boots and Spot Bilt cleats.
tranquilrage73@reddit
Think Kyle Busch. If you were into NASCAR, he was super popular. A lot of other people knew his name, and his face, but that was about it.
tres-vip@reddit
Very popular. That's why it was such a high-profile case. We also watched the verdict in my high school class, lol. My French teacher rolled the TV into the roll into the classroom.
largos7289@reddit
He was pretty popular. He was sorta doing the movie thing as the next step in his career then Kaboom!!!
AKA-Pseudonym@reddit
He was definitely mostly known as an athlete. His acting roles were mainly bit parts or roles in low budget (or at least low prestige) films.
He was very well known at the time but he wasn't enormously famous. His NFL career had ended 15 years earlier and, like I said his acting career was a little underwhelming. But in 1994 that was enough have most people know who you are.
It's just rare to have somebody even that famous get charged with murder. So it became a big deal.
Imightbeafanofthis@reddit
I'm surprised by the comments here. I grew up in Los Angeles, where he was considered a somewhat minor celebrity. I mean, he was well known, but he was just another athlete who leveraged his fame as an athlete into a pretty mediocre film career.
Full_Mission7183@reddit
I would compare him to Peyton Manning today. He was around the game, the American people were peppered by him in television commercials and he held up with charisma under the spot light.
TsundereLoliDragon@reddit
He was one of the best football players of all time.
Incognito409@reddit
Not to mention that he could fly through airports!Â
jaxknitsandknits@reddit
I had no idea who he was before he killed his ex wife.
therealbamspeedy@reddit
He was so far retired from the NFL that the younger generation only really knew him through the movies, they didn't know much about his football career, so most of the talk of being 'very popular', at least with younger people was more about his movies than him being a 'football god'.
Fangsong_37@reddit
OJ was very well-known and liked from his acting in the Naked Gun movies and his time as a football star.
DrMindbendersMonocle@reddit
He was pretty popular. After his NFL career as one of the best at his position of all time, he went on to be an actor in some fairly big movies like The Naked Gun. Everybody knew who he was
meowmix778@reddit
He was huge. Although sports celebrity wasn't as big as it is today, he was absolutely one of the biggest names and part of the generation of athletes that really made the idea of sports celebrities as big or similar to regular celebrities.
I was a little kid when it happened but it was ALL that was on the news.
New-Sheepherder2239@reddit
Immensely popular.
Historical_Bath_9854@reddit
He played sportsball and ran through airports to pitch rental carsđ¤ˇ
Last_Ambassador_2296@reddit
He was actually very popular before he joined twitter. Had a book, an nfl career, and a few run ins with the law prior to the twitter golf vids and football picks
TheDadThatGrills@reddit
He was both a NFL and Film star in the United States, basically 20 years of continuous success.
HurtsCauseItMatters@reddit
I could not have cared less at the time about sports much less the NFL and even I knew who he was as in "generic NFL guy who is on TV sometimes". If I, a 13 year old girl with no sports interest knew who he was, everyone did.
Jorost@reddit
He was a big football star in the '70s and early '80s; when he retired he started acting in movies. But he was not a serious actor. It was more like he made comedic cameo appearances. His most well-known character was Nordberg from the Naked Gun movies, who was basically just a slapstick version of Simpson himself. But he never did any roles that required real acting talent. By the time of the infamous double murder he was a B-list celebrity.
MarcatBeach@reddit
His movie career was nothing. he did a series and some things, did some NFL announcing.
Sports was why everyone knew who he was. even after his career ended. He was a football legend. Take your pick of any famous player, he is on that level.
LowCress9866@reddit
He was very popular. To use a modern comparison I would say it would be akin to waking up to find out Charles Barkley was suspected of a brutal double murder.
Barkley actually wouldn't be as shocking as OJ was, as beloved as he is now. We didn't know about OJ's history of domestic abuse at the time of the white Bronco, but everybody saw Barkley's "I am not a role model" commercial or the spitting incident
Successful-Cut7999@reddit
He was the first athlete, in top of that the first black athlete, to become the face of a big brand (hertz) with a successful ad campaign.Â
He was heisman trophy winner, held various football records,Â
Was beloved by both blacks and whites as he never got involved into racial discussions and mingled with powerful white men in country clubs and golf courts.
He had a decent acting career, especially with The Naked Gun
He wasnât at the peak of his popularity anymore in 1994 but still very famous Â
PikesPique@reddit
He was really well liked and seemed like a nice guy. When it was reported that his ex-wife and another guy had been murdered, people thought, Oh, thatâs sad, but no suspected OJ. He was a football commentator, a movie actor and a guy who flew through airports in TV commercials. Thatâs why we were glued to our TVs to watch the slow-speed chase through the streets of LA. It was like, What is happening?!
kilertree@reddit
Popular enough to beat a double Homicide murder Charge. His court cased caused White Bronco sells to spike.Â
palomdude@reddit
I had never heard of him before the trial, but I was 10 when it happened.
SpunkySideKick@reddit
I was a child when he hit the news and had no idea who he was. Saw some of his movies as teenagers and didn't care for him as an actor. He was pretty meh from my POV.
ThirteenOnline@reddit
very
dotdedo@reddit
Extremely popular
drumzandice@reddit
By the time he was making movies, he was long since retired from sports. But he was a great Aunt popular athlete and then people thought he was very likable in movies and in media. I would say he was very popular before he murdered two people.