Watch: O.J. Simpson Murder Trial: 5 Bizarre Things to Know
When a jury acquits, that’s not necessarily it.
It’s been almost 31 years since O.J. Simpson was found not guilty of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman. But while Judge Lance Ito ordered that the fallen football hero be released from custody “forthwith,” the case never truly rested.
Rather, the verdict delivered on Oct. 3, 1995, marked only the beginning when it came to examining what, exactly, the case of the People of the State of California v. Orenthal James Simpson meant about celebrity, race, class, the justice system and so much more—let alone how those actually involved in the proceedings were affected.
Whether or not Simpson thought he’d be able to pick up where he left off upon his release from jail, he obviously did not. The Buffalo Bills star turned broadcaster and in-demand pitchman remained extremely famous until his death on April 10, 2024, at the age of 76, but he was only welcome in so many circles.
The four-part Investigation Discovery docuseries O.J. Unseen: Exploitation of Evil, premiering Sept. 7 at 9 p.m., delves into the 2004 production of Juiced, a Punk’d-era prank show starring Simpson that somehow never made it to air.
Comeback averted.
Famous people had been accused of terrible things before, and Los Angeles had seen its share of splashy legal proceedings. But never had a case become so all-consuming, dominating cable news and late-night comedy, preempting sporting events and introducing a who’s who of characters—Kato, Clark, Cochran, Kardashian—into the public consciousness.
And the gossip fodder poured forth, from the infamous low-speed Bronco chase that preceded Simpson’s arrest to the Naked Gun actor pleading “absolutely, 100 percent not guilty” at his arraignment, to the ill-fitting glove debacle and the systematic dismantling of multiple prosecution witnesses at the hands of the defendant’s so-dubbed dream team of lawyers.
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After all had been argued and objected to, the 473-day trial cost the city of L.A. upward of $10 million and Simpson walked free. (Until he was convicted of robbery in 2008 and imprisoned for nine years, but that’s another story.)
The outcome was by turns heartening or heartbreaking, depending on whom you asked, and in 1995 you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who didn’t have an opinion on the matter, as more than 100 million people stopped what they were doing to flip on the TV and watch the live reading of the verdict.
Few things have captured a national audience quite that way since—and TV simply doesn’t work that way anymore except, ironically, during the Super Bowl—but in its day the Simpson murder trial was the biggest show on the air.
And here’s a sampling of the bizarre twists and turns that kept people watching:
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20th Century Fox Television
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(Originally published Oct. 3, 2025, at 5 a.m. PT)
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