Sports channel Bob Costas looks back on his personal history with the deceased OJ Simpson.
“It’s a complicated legacy, to say the least,” Costas, 72, said on the Friday, April 12, episode Today show. “I can’t think of any historical person or anyone [who] Maybe they knew that the first chapter and the second chapter of their lives were so contrasting.”
Simpson first gained fame as an all-star football player and was nicknamed “The Juice.” He played in 11 NFL seasons and five Pro Bowls before finally retiring in 1979 and becoming a sportscaster. Fifteen years later, his legacy changed when he was accused of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her boyfriend Ronald Goldman.
“[He] was revered and then reviled,” Costas recalled Friday. “Yes, I knew him well. All of us at NBC Sports and at NBC who interacted with him really liked him. What I’m about to say doesn’t diminish the crime he clearly committed, but back then he was the guy who remembered the name of the boy who brought you the newspaper and coffee when you first met him got on set to cover football on Sunday.”
He continued: “He was accommodating to every fan who came up to him. He enjoyed his fame. He was very good company… and then all that changed in our perception and in the public perception one night in June 1994.”
OJ Simpson
Kirby Lee/WireImageBrown Simpson, who divorced the former NFL star in 1992, and Goldman were stabbed to death outside their Los Angeles home in June 1994. Simpson was arrested days later after evidence, including a glove found at the crime scene that allegedly bore his DNA, appeared to link him to the crime. Simpson pleaded not guilty to the charges and was ultimately acquitted in a criminal trial.
The families of Brown Simpson and Goldman later filed a civil lawsuit against Simpson in 1996, for which he was held liable. Simpson was ordered to pay $33 million in damages to the victims’ families.
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Simpson died 28 years later, and his family – including five children and several grandchildren – confirmed his death on Thursday, April 11. Simpson was 76 and had been battling cancer.
“The only thing I have to say is that today is another reminder of how long Ron has been gone and how long we have missed him,” Ron’s father said. Fred Goldmantold later Us weekly in a statement. “The only thing that really matters today are the victims.”