Former NFL star and actor, OJ Simpson, has died aged 76 after a battle with cancer, his family have announced.
Simpson was regarded as one of the greatest running backs of all time after spending a decade in the NFL playing for the Buffalo Bills and San Francisco 49ers. After his football career, Simpson moved into acting and appeared in various films and TV shows, including the popular Naked Gun franchise of films which lampooned police procedural movies.
In 1994, he was accused of murdering his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman, after they were found stabbed to death outside her Los Angeles home.
Simpson pleaded not guilty, and after a high-profile trial that lasted nearly a year, was acquitted by a jury. It was known as the ‘trial of the century’.
A civil lawsuit from the victims’ families found him responsible for wrongful death and battery, ordering him to pay $33.5 million in damages.
In 2007, he was convicted after leading five men into an armed robbery in Las Vegas. He was released in 2017 on parole after being originally sentenced to 33 years in prison.
Simpson had three children from his marriage to Marguerite L. Whitley: Arnelle, Jason, and Aaren. Aaren tragically drowned in the family’s swimming pool when he was just two years old.
He also had two children with Nicole: Sydney and Justin. Their marriage lasted seven years. They were divorced in 1989 and she was murdered in 1994.
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