O.J. Simpson, the most controversial American football star, passed away at the age of 76

The family of O.J. Simpson, the actor and American football star, announced his death on Thursday, April 12, in a social media post. They stated, "Our father, Orenthal James Simpson, succumbed to cancer on Wednesday, April 11." O.J. Simpson was acquitted by a jury in Los Angeles in 1995 in a controversial trial described as "the trial of the century." Simpson was accused of murdering his ex-wife and her friend with a knife in 1994. From the beginning of the case, he claimed to be "100 percent innocent." His trial captured public attention in America. At the White House, then-President Bill Clinton watched the reading of his acquittal on television. Nevertheless, the family of his ex-wife and her friend took him to civil court. In 1997, a jury found Simpson liable for their deaths and ordered him to pay $33.5 million in damages. Simpson's controversies did not end there. In 2008, exactly thirteen years after his acquittal in the murder trial, he was convicted by a jury in Las Vegas on charges including kidnapping and armed robbery at a casino hotel and was sentenced to 33 years in prison. However, in 2021, at the age of 74, he was released due to good behavior in prison. Orenthal James Simpson was born on July 9, 1947, in San Francisco. He had to wear leg braces from ages 2 to 5 due to rickets but improved enough to become one of the most famous football players of all time. In May 2023, he wrote on the platform "X" that he had recently "been diagnosed with cancer" and "needed to undergo chemotherapy," but did not specify the type of cancer.