OJ Simpson reveals how he is revelling in retired life in Vegas

After 25 years living under the shadow of one of the nation’s most notorious murder cases, OJ Simpson says his life has entered a phase he calls the ‘no negative zone.’

In a telephone Interview, Simpson told The Associated Press he is healthy and happy living in Las Vegas.

And neither he nor his children want to look back by talking about June 12, 1994 – when his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman, were killed and Simpson quickly was transformed in the public mind from revered Pro Football Hall of Fame hero to murder suspect.

The so-called ‘Trial of the Century’ lasted nearly a year and became a national obsession. Simpson was acquitted by a jury in 1995 and has continued to declare his innocence. The murder case is officially listed as unsolved – but the public’s fascination continues.

In fact, Goldman’s sister recently revealed she is still struggling to move on from her brother’s death partially because of people’s obsession with ‘revisiting’ the OJ Simpson case. 

TSimpson in the garden of his Las Vegas area home. He says he now spends his days playing golf and living in the ‘no negative zone’

Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were found murdered on June 12, 1994 outside Brown’s condominium in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles

‘We don’t need to go back and relive the worst day of our lives,’ Simpson said. ‘The subject of the moment is the subject I will never revisit again. My family and I have moved on to what we call the ‘no negative zone.’ We focus on the positives.’

For a man who once lived for the spotlight, Simpson has been keeping a largely low profile since his release from prison in October 2017 after serving nine years for a robbery-kidnapping conviction in Las Vegas.

He continues to believe his conviction and sentence for trying to steal back his own memorabilia were unfair but says, ‘I believe in the legal system and I honored it. I served my time.’

After his release from the prison in Lovelock, Nevada, many expected him to return to Florida where he had lived for several years. But friends in Las Vegas persuaded him to stay there despite the case that landed him in prison.

‘The town has been good to me,’ Simpson said. ‘Everybody I meet seems to be apologizing for what happened to me here.’

O.J. Simpson reacts as he is found not guilty in the death of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman in Los Angeles at his trial in 1995

Prosecutor Marcia Clark demonstrates to the jury how the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman were committed during her closing arguments in the O.J. Simpson double-murder trial in 1995

His time in the city hasn’t been without controversy, however. A month after his release an outing to a steakhouse and lounge at the Cosmopolitan resort off the Las Vegas Strip ended in a dispute. Simpson was ordered off the property and prohibited from returning.

No such problems have occurred since, and Simpson is among the most sought-after figures in town for selfies with those who encounter him at restaurants or athletic events he attends occasionally.

He plays golf almost every day and said he is a member of a club of ‘retired guys’ who compete with each other on the golf course.

The knees that helped him run to football glory at the University of Southern California and with the NFL’s Buffalo Bills have been replaced and he recently had Lasik surgery on his eyes. But nearing his 72nd birthday, he is otherwise healthy.

Simpson said he remains close to his children and other relatives. His parole officer has given him permission to take short trips including to Florida where his two younger children, Justin and Sydney, have built careers in real estate.

His older daughter, Arnelle, lives with him much of the time but also commutes to Los Angeles.

Simpson reacts after learning he was granted parole at Lovelock Correctional Center in 2017

‘I’ve been to Florida two or three times to see the kids and my old buddies in Miami. I even managed to play a game of golf with them,’ he said. ‘But I live in a town I’ve learned to love. Life is fine.’

He also visited relatives in Louisiana, he said, and spoke to a group of black judges and prosecutors in New Orleans.

Recently, a family wedding brought his extended family to Las Vegas including his brother, Truman; sister, Shirley; and their children and grandchildren. Simpson’s first wife, Marguerite, mother of Arnelle, also joined the group.

The glamor of his early life is just a memory.

After his football career, Simpson became a commercial pitchman, actor and football commentator. He was once a multimillionaire but he says most of his fortune was spent defending himself after he was charged with the murders.

After he was acquitted by a jury in 1995, the families of the victims subsequently filed a civil suit against him, and in 1997 a civil court awarded a $33.5 million judgment against him for the wrongful deaths of his ex-wife and Goldman. Some of his property was seized and auctioned but most of the judgment has not been paid.

Simpson declined to discuss his finances other than to say he lives on pensions.

‘Closure isn’t a word that resonates with me’: Ron Goldman’s sister says she is still struggling to move on from her brother’s murder 25 years later – as she blames others for constantly ‘revisiting’ the crime

Kim Goldman has continued to make the case publicly that it was O.J. Simpson who killed her brother

Ron Goldman’s sister says she is still struggling to move on from her brother’s murder 25 years ago because of the public’s fascination with the OJ Simpson trial.

Kim Goldman, 47, was left devastated by Simpson’s acquittal in 1995 for her brother’s murder one year earlier. 

As the verdict was read following one of the most divisive criminal cases in U.S. history, cameras in the courtroom caught her sobbing uncontrollably. 

Twenty-five years later, she has turned the agony of that moment into a lifetime of helping troubled teens and aiding crime victims’ rights groups while also pursuing the life of a suburban single mom.

‘I don’t suffocate in my grief. But every milestone that my kid hits, every milestone that I hit, you know, those are just reminders of what I’m not able to share with my brother and what he is missing out on,’ she says.

‘Closure,’ she declares, ‘isn’t a word that resonates with me. I don’t think it’s applicable when it comes to tragedy and trauma and loss of life.’

Beginning Wednesday, Goldman will examine the case in a 10-episode podcast, ‘Confronting: OJ Simpson’

Ron Goldman’s sister Kim buries her face in her hands and weeps as her father Fred, center, holds her in disbelief as the jury returns the not-guilty verdict for Simpson in 1995

For those who say Goldman should just move on, she says they are the ones who need to get beyond their fascination with Simpson and the trial.

‘Because our case is so high-profile, I don’t get to choose to just `move on,” she says. 

‘So the criticism I get that I’m not moving on, I sort of feel like that’s the criticism that everybody else should be having. The rest of the world, they’re always revisiting this. Twenty years later, 25 years later, and I’m just living my life.’

To coincide with Wednesday’s anniversary, Goldman will launch a 10-week podcast, ‘Confronting: O.J. Simpson,’ during which she’ll interview her brother’s old friends, the police detective who investigated the killings, attorneys for the defense and prosecution, and two of the 12 jurors who acquitted Simpson. 

Throughout, she’ll continue to make the case that Simpson was guilty.

She hopes to eventually turn the podcast into a series spotlighting victims of other crimes.

Simpson sits in his attorney’s car in June 1994 after being questioned by Los Angeles police into the death of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ron Goldman

Her 25-year-old brother was returning a pair of sunglasses that the mother of Nicole Brown Simpson had left at a restaurant where he worked when he and Simpson’s ex-wife were stabbed and slashed dozens of times.

Goldman’s body had numerous defensive wounds, indicating he tried to stop the attack on Brown Simpson, a friend. 

OJ, who has always maintained his innocence, told The Associated Press he will no longer discuss the killings.

Two years after he was acquitted, a civil court jury found him liable for the deaths and ordered he pay the survivors $33.5 million.

Since then, Ron Goldman’s sister and father relentlessly have pursued Simpson’s assets, seizing some of his memorabilia, his rights to movies he appeared in and a book he wrote about the killings called ‘If I Did It.’

After acquiring the book rights, Kim Goldman added to it, changed its title to include the words, ‘Confessions of the Killer’ and published it.

Fred Goldman, father of murder victim Ron Goldman, has relentlessly pursued O.J. Simpson through civil courts, maintaining it is the only way to achieve justice for his son

In 2014, she released a memoir, ‘Can’t Forgive: My 20-Year Battle With O.J. Simpson,’ in which she revealed a chance encounter at a strip mall during which she passed on the chance to run him over with her SUV.

Sometime after that encounter, Simpson was sentenced to prison for barging into a Las Vegas hotel room with armed accomplices and robbing sports memorabilia dealers of property he said was his.

Kim Goldman and her father have always taken some credit for that stick-up, believing Simpson was trying to make sure the memorabilia stayed hidden so they couldn’t seize it.

Although she was not involved in that case, she stayed in the courtroom after Simpson’s 2008 sentencing to ensure he saw her as he was led off to prison. She says it was retribution of a sort for his lead attorney in the murder case smiling at her as she sobbed.

Simpson was paroled in 2017, and Goldman isn’t sure what she’d do if she saw him now.

‘Screaming and all the F-bombs I could drop would probably feel really great. But I don’t know,’ she says, letting the thought drift off. Maybe she’d just say, ‘Eh,’ and leave it at that.    

A white Ford Bronco, driven by Al Cowlings carrying O.J. Simpson, is trailed by Los Angeles police cars during a now infamous police chase

Where are they now? What happened to the key players in the OJ Simpson trial

The June 12, 1994, killings of Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman brought the ‘Trial of the Century’ that saw O.J. Simpson acquitted of the murders. From Johnnie to Kato to Ito, the trial brought together a fascinating cast of charters. Here’s a look at where they are now.

THE DEFENDANT

Two years after Simpson’s 1995 acquittal, a civil court jury found him liable for the deaths of his ex-wife and Goldman, and ordered he pay their survivors $33.5 million.

He got into a series of minor legal scrapes ranging from a 2001 Florida road-rage incident (he was acquitted) to racing his boat through a protected Florida manatee zone in 2002 (he was fined).

His most serious transgression came in 2007, however, when he and five others barged into a Las Vegas hotel room with guns and robbed memorabilia dealers of property that Simpson said was his.

He served nine years in a Nevada prison and was paroled in 2017. Now 71, Simpson lives quietly in Las Vegas where he says he plays golf nearly every day with a group of ‘retired guys.’

He also poses for selfies with the many people still enamored with his celebrity. Simpson told The Associated Press in a recent interview that he will never discuss the murders again.

OJ Simpson pictured with ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson who was brutally murdered in 1994

THE VICTIMS’ SURVIVORS

Ron Goldman’s sister, Kim, was 22 and broke into hysterical sobs when the not guilty verdict was read.

These days she counsels troubled teens as executive director of a Southern California-based nonprofit, The Youth Project, and is a speaker to victims’ rights group.

She has authored several books and on Wednesday – the 25th anniversary of her sister’s death – begins a 10-episode podcast titled ‘Confronting: OJ Simpson,’ in which she says she’ll discuss all aspects of the trial. Goldman, now 47, lives in a Southern California suburb with her 15-year-old son.

Fred Goldman, Ron’s father, has relentlessly pursued Simpson through civil courts, maintaining it is the only way to achieve justice for his son. Goldman’s family has seized some of Simpson’s memorabilia, including his 1968 Heisman Trophy as college football’s best player that year.

The family has also taken the rights to Simpson’s movies, a book he wrote about the killings and other items to satisfy part of the $33.5 million judgment that Simpson refuses to pay. Goldman, 78, lives with his wife, Patti, in Arizona, where both are Realtors.

Denise Brown, Nicole Brown Simpson’s sister, has remained the family’s most outspoken critic of Simpson, although like the Goldman family she refuses to speak his name.

The former model has become a victims’ rights advocate and a speaker, urging both women and men to leave abusive relationships. She said she has gotten over her anger with God for the killings but has never forgiven Simpson and will not watch any films or documentaries about the killings.

Denise Brown, sister of murder victim Nicole Brown Simpson, has remained the family’s most outspoken critic of Simpson

THE LEGAL DREAM TEAM

Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr., Simpson’s flamboyant lead attorney, died of brain cancer in 2005 at 68. His refrain to jurors that ‘If it doesn’t fit, you must acquit’ sought to underscore that the bloody gloves found at Simpson’s home and the crime scene were too small for the football legend when he tried them on in court.

After the trial, that line became a national catchphrase. Following the trial Cochran expanded his law firm to 15 states and frequently appeared on television. He also became the inspiration for bombastic lawyer Jackie Chiles on the TV sitcom ‘Seinfeld.’

Robert Kardashian died of esophageal cancer in 2003 at age 59. He had renewed his law license specifically to defend Simpson, and his longtime friend stayed in Kardashian’s home between the time of the murders and his arrest.

OJ Simpson stayed in the home of Robert Kardashian (pictured) between the time of the murders and his arrest

When Simpson fled authorities in a white Ford Bronco on June 17, 1994, Kardashian read to reporters a rambling message Simpson had left behind as a bizarre, nationally televised, slow-speed freeway chase unfolded.

Since his death, Kardashian’s fame has been eclipsed by that of ex-wife, Kris, and children, Kourtney, Kim, Khloe and Rob, thanks to their reality show, ‘Keeping Up With the Kardashians.’

Robert Shapiro, the first member of Simpson’s defense team, continues to practice law. In 2005 he founded the Brent Shapiro Foundation to help steer young people from drug and alcohol addiction after his 24-year-old son died of an overdose.

He also co-founded LegalZoom.com, a do-it-yourself service for people seeking to file legal documents without the help of attorneys, and RightCounsel.com for people searching for an attorney.

Barry Scheck was the lawyer who introduced DNA science to jurors as he attacked police methods of evidence collection to undermine the prosecution’s forensic evidence case.

He and fellow Simpson lawyer Peter Neufeld co-founded The Innocence Project that uses DNA evidence to exonerate wrongly convicted prisoners. The project has helped overturn hundreds of convictions.

F. Lee Bailey was the lawyer who played a key role in exposing racist statements made by one of the prosecution’s key witnesses, police Detective Mark Fuhrman, undermining Fuhrman’s credibility.

When he joined the defense team, Bailey already was famous for his role in some of the most high-profile cases of the 20th century, including that of heiress-turned-bank-robber Patricia Hearst.

Bailey, now 86, was disbarred in Massachusetts and Florida in the early 2000s for misconduct in handling a client’s case. His efforts to be reinstated have been unsuccessful.

THE PROSECUTORS

Marcia Clark, the trial’s lead prosecutor, quit law after the case, although she has appeared frequently as a TV commentator on high-profile trials over the years and on numerous TV news shows.

She was paid $4 million for her Simpson trial memoir, ‘Without a Doubt,’ and has gone on to write a series of crime novels.

Chris Darden, the co-prosecutor, was criticized for having Simpson try on the bloody gloves without first ensuring they would fit. He is now a defense attorney himself.

He recently represented the man charged with killing hip-hop mogul Nipsey Hussle before withdrawing from the case, saying his family had received death threats.

Darden has also taught law, appeared on television as a legal commentator and wrote of his Simpson trial experiences in the book, ‘In Contempt.’

Former O.J. Simpson prosecutor Marcia Clark quit law after the case against Simpson

THE JUDGE

Lance Ito, who retired in 2015, presided over approximately 500 trials after the one that made him such a household name that ‘The Tonight Show’ briefly featured a comedy segment called ‘The Dancing Itos,’ in which Ito lookalikes in judicial robes performed.

After the Simpson trial he had to remove his name plate from his courtroom door because people kept stealing it. Ito has never discussed the trial, citing judicial ethics.

THE HOUSEGUEST

Brian ‘Kato’ Kaelin, a struggling actor living in a guest house on Simpson’s property, testified he heard a bump during the night of the murders and went outside to find Simpson in the yard, something prosecutors say showed Simpson was sneaking back home after the killings.

Mocked on talk shows as America’s most famous houseguest, Kaelin has gone on to appear in reality shows, in small parts in TV sitcoms and films, and to launch a clothing line for slackers.

In recent years he’s been a regular at Wizard World Comic Con in St. Louis.

Brian ‘Kato’ Kaelin testifies under direct examination during the OJ Simpson double-murder trial