Tweet
A controversial choice for Gone But Not Forgotten, but as I have seen obituaries on other websites, I thought that it would be worth writing one on here: former American footballer and NFL player, Orenthal James Simpson, known as OJ, has died of cancer aged 76. Simpson had a high profile in the mid 1990s by virtue of being controversally cleared of double murder of his former wife Nicole Brown and a friend which gripped the United States at the time, if not the rest of the world. In 2008 he was sentenced to 33 years for armed robbery but was released in 2017.
I think that from a British perspective, what I would mainly associate Simpson for was the exclusive interview for the Granada's shortlived (and more or less forgotten about by now) Tonight with Richard and Judy programme on Monday 13th May 1996; they had booked Simpson with an attempt of a scoop for their new Monday evening chat show for the then incumbent This Morning hosts. It was promised that the full half hour (sans commercial break) would be used to interview him. Madeley and Finnigan interviewed Simpson for the first ten miniutes, and then ended it ten minutes in to make way for the ad break, and in the second half, went ontop some re-recorded coverage of other things, which even surprised Simpson himself. He was paid a £1 nominal fee for his first interview since being cleared of murder the year before, and even Granada paid for his travel expenses for the interview.
No doubt that we not are here to glamourise those who have done wrong, but in the case of Simpson, it has a lot of unique aspects in which 40 years on, still seems fascinating, be it American or not American.
I think that from a British perspective, what I would mainly associate Simpson for was the exclusive interview for the Granada's shortlived (and more or less forgotten about by now) Tonight with Richard and Judy programme on Monday 13th May 1996; they had booked Simpson with an attempt of a scoop for their new Monday evening chat show for the then incumbent This Morning hosts. It was promised that the full half hour (sans commercial break) would be used to interview him. Madeley and Finnigan interviewed Simpson for the first ten miniutes, and then ended it ten minutes in to make way for the ad break, and in the second half, went ontop some re-recorded coverage of other things, which even surprised Simpson himself. He was paid a £1 nominal fee for his first interview since being cleared of murder the year before, and even Granada paid for his travel expenses for the interview.
No doubt that we not are here to glamourise those who have done wrong, but in the case of Simpson, it has a lot of unique aspects in which 40 years on, still seems fascinating, be it American or not American.
Comment