O.J.’S life pulpier than he lets on
Simpson says he has lived ‘conflict free’; others disagree
LOS ANGELES — When O.J. Simpson told a Nevada parole board last week that he’s led a “conflict-free life,” he seemed to overlook a few episodes that had him cycling in and out of courtrooms and jail cells for nearly 20 years before the Las Vegas hotel-room heist that sent him to prison in 2008.
There was a wife-beating charge in 1989 that he pleaded no contest to, a road-rage charge he was acquitted of in 2001 and a contempt-of-court citation in 2008 that put him in jail for five days.
There was also, of course, the 1994 murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. Acquitted by a criminal jury in 1995, the football hero and Hollywood star was found liable for the killings in civil court two years later and ordered to pay the victims’ families $33.5 million.
“The idea that he believes that he’s led a conflict-free life shows a certain delusion that he’s been very noted for throughout his career,” said veteran Hollywood crisis publicist Michael Levine.
In the wife-beating case, Simpson was accused of attacking Nicole Brown Simpson on New Year’s Day 1989, angrily telling police it was a “family matter.” Then, fearing he would be arrested, he fled in his Rolls-royce, according to police.
Officers reported they arrived at Simpson’s Los Angeles home before dawn to find Nicole Brown Simpson screaming, “He’s going to kill me!” They said she had a cut lip, a swollen and blackened left eye and cheek, and a handprint still visible on her neck.
She called 911 again, eight months before she was killed, to report Simpson had broken down a door to get into her home and was threatening to beat her. He could be heard screaming angrily in the background.
When the 70-year-old Simpson told his parole board Thursday, “I’ve basically had a conflict-free life, you know,” the remark lit up social media with derision and disbelief.
“A conflict-free life,” Ron Goldman’s father, Fred, asked incredulously Saturday. “This is who he is. He’s a sociopath, a narcissistic liar, a murderer, a thug, a kidnapper, a robber. The list goes on.”