Former NFL football star OJ Simpson reacts after learning he was granted parole at Lovelock Correctional Centre in Lovelock, Nevada in 2017. Photo / AP
Former NFL football star OJ Simpson reacts after learning he was granted parole at Lovelock Correctional Centre in Lovelock, Nevada in 2017. Photo / AP
OJ Simpson has been diagnosed with prostate cancer and is receiving chemotherapy treatment in Las Vegas, according to Daily Mail.
The former NFL star - who made headlines in 1995 when he was acquitted of the murder of his ex-wife and her friend in what was dubbed the “Trialof the Century” - was also rumoured to have been in hospice care, only weeks after he was seen looking weak and frail.
Simpson, 76, has since denied those claims, insisting on social media that he is not in pastoral care. However, he failed to mention the Local 10 News report which said that he is receiving treatment for cancer.
In a video posted to his 870,000 followers on X, formerly known as Twitter, Simpson is seen sitting in his car, telling his followers: “Hospice? Hospice? You talking about hospice,” before erupting in a fit of laughter.
“I don’t know who put that out there ... like The Donald [Trump] say, you can’t trust the media!”
In 1995, Simpson went to trial over the death of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. The pair were discovered brutally murdered outside Nicole’s home in LA.
Simpson’s acquittal came nine months after the highly-publicised trial began in 1995, and about 16 months after his ex-wife and her friend were found dead outside the former’s home.
The trial, which investigated the murders, played out on TV and made headlines at the time. However, despite walking free in 1995, Simpson was forced to pay US$33.5 million ($54.4m) in damages to the Brown and Goldman families after being found guilty for their deaths in civil court.
The former running back for the Buffalo Bills and San Francisco 49ers also ran into more legal dramas when he was sentenced to nine to 33 years in prison for armed robbery in Nevada in 2008.
After serving for nine years behind bars, he was granted parole in 2017.
