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I never thought that I would catch myself saying that I felt sorry for O.J. Simpson, but I’ve got to confess, as I watched the one-time American icon handcuffed and hustled out of a Vegas court room late Friday night, I felt both sad and sorry.
Don’t get me wrong, I have publicly stated and written many times that I firmly believe that O.J. Simpson is “a liar, a coward and a killer”.
He is also a fascinating character who, on Friday night as the “guilty” verdicts were read one after another, looked like a bewildered, paunchy, and pathetic old man.
The truth is that I don’t have any greater insights into O.J. than any other person outside his private circle. Although, as fate would have it, I do have a lot links to the Simpson story that seem to go way back.
I still remember the first time I ever saw “the Juice” in person. I was a college kid at Columbia University in New York City and for some reason, that I can no longer remember, I was down at the south end of Central Park near the famous Plaza Hotel.
I was walking down the crowded sidewalk when suddenly a stunning figure came striding at me in the opposite direction. It was the legendary O.J. Simpson gliding down the street in a ankle length fur coat.
This was back during the glory days. The retired football star was now Hollywood actor and T.V. broadcaster, running through airports, pitching rent-a-cars and appearing in movies.
And at that memorable moment in Manhattan, it was very clear by the self-satisfied look on his face, O.J. considered himself the center of the universe, enjoying the fact that every single person on that bustling New York street was doing a double take–jaws dropping–eyes popping–as he whisked on by.
Suffice it to say, without showing sign of caring, O.J. obviously loved the attention.
Of course at the time of this unforgettable celebrity sighting, I had no idea what the future would bring.
Flash forward to southern California many years later, a hazy coastal morning.
I was one of the first reporters to get to the crime scene that terrible day–the day they found the mutilated bodies of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson in front of Nicole’s condo.
At the time I was the L.A bureau chief for the tabloid t.v. show “A Current Affair.” I then went on to cover much of the criminal prosecution on O.J. Simpson, the so-called “trial of the century.” (see earlier installment of “confessions of an ambulance chaser–O.J. Simpson and one agonizing moment of missed opportunity.”).
Like most Americans alive back then, I also witnessed first-hand the bizarre and painful black-and-white rorschach test that the televised trial imposed on the nation’s psyche.
It was a crazy time in Southern Cal. Black motorist Rodney King was dragged from his car and brutally beaten by a group of white L.A. cops–this as an eyewitness captured it all on videotape.
Devastating and deadly riots then erupted when those cops were found not guilty. I spent a couple of scary days out on the streets of La-la-land covering the mayhem, getting shot at by looters and watching as the city burned. (Good times!)
Add to that toxic mix, the day-in-and-day-out televised double-murder trial of the NFL legend, sports broadcaster, t.v. pitchman and Hollywood actor, O.J. Simpson–a very high-profile black man accused of killing two white people, his ex-wife and one of the ex-wife’s male friends–and, well let’s just say, you didn’t need anything like a richter scale to sense the racial rumblings and rage.
Now flash ahead 13 years, an African-American man now seems poised to capture the White House and O.J. Simpson is headed to the big house.
I’m not sure what any of this means. I’d like to think that, at the end of the day, there is some modicum of justice of at least karma–and that we as a nation are moving in the right direction.
But all I know for sure is that as I watched a pathetic old man being hauled off to jail, I thought of Fred and Kim Goldman–I thought of my friend Denise Brown and her family–I also thought of O.J.’s four children–and I’ve got to confess, I found myself feeing both sorry and sad…..mw

Arizona, Mike Watkiss