O.J. Simpson now: Tapes offer a glimpse of his life
Audio recordings secretly made by a business partner portray an aging but still charismatic man who draws crowds of adoring strangers in bars but counts few trustworthy friends.
When he's not on trial, O.J. Simpson wakes up at 5 a.m. and is driving to a golf course in Miami by 6:30. He takes an afternoon nap and goes to bed early. In between, the football great is beset by requests.
Strangers want to take his picture. Fans want to buy him a drink. And, according to audio recordings played in his Las Vegas robbery-kidnap trial, men who call themselves his friends try to cash in on his infamy.
The hours of recordings -- made surreptitiously by a Simpson business partner on Sept. 13, 2007 -- provide an unfiltered look at the Hall of Famer's life since his 1995 acquittal in the killings of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman.
Once, O.J. Simpson dated models and posed on Hollywood red carpets. The tapes portray him now as an aging but still charismatic man who draws crowds of adoring strangers in bars but counts few trustworthy friends.
His $400,000 annual pension and $1-million house seem at odds with the low-rent tactics of those who surround him. In the recordings, he complains about one confidant who tried to persuade him to film a sex tape and to pose for the National Enquirer with a mound of cocaine.
Another associate is heard hitting him up for autographs only to call him a killer as soon as he's out of earshot.
"I know my friends," Simpson says on one tape, just hours before he and five associates allegedly robbed a pair of memorabilia dealers. "I know better than anybody."
The prosecution's witness list belies his assessment. All but one of the eight other men at the Palace Station Hotel & Casino confrontation are testifying against Simpson. Several said that he was the scheme's ringleader and that at least one of his associates was armed. The 61-year-old faces a dozen counts, including kidnapping, which carries a potential life sentence.
Grayer and more weary-looking than at his Los Angeles trial, Simpson nonetheless arrives at Courtroom 15A each day smiling. His hearty laugh rumbles down the hall as he signs autographs and backslaps well-wishers.
"It gets old," he conceded after signing a book on a recent afternoon. But, he added, "I'm a public person. I love people."
His private life, however, is fraught with schemes and betrayals, according to the recordings, interviews and court testimony.
