The People v. O.J. Simpson Recap: Episode 1 Fact Check
O.J. Simpson had a real-life statue of himself at his Rockingham estate.
True. It was auctioned off in 1999, as was much of Simpson’s estate, after the civil trial, brought against Simpson by the families of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, found him legally responsible for their deaths and ordered Simpson pay them $33 million. The statue, by Gene Logan, sold for $3,250.
Marcia Clark canceled a baby shower for a friend on the Monday that the O.J. Simpson case took over the L.A. District Attorney’s office.
Sort of true. Based on the film’s source material, The Run of His Life, she was helping to throw a bridal shower, not a baby shower, as in the show. This is a baffling, inconsequential deviation from the truth, perhaps intended to make Clark even more unlikeable. Sarah Paulson’s portrayal is already plenty brisk, and Clark was known as profane around the office, and she would refer to Simpson as “evil.”
The detectives completely bungled Simpson’s questioning.
Definitely true. The whole thing lasted only 32 minutes, and prosecutors really did refer to his interrogation as “the fiasco.”
Christopher Darden regarded Johnnie Cochran as a “mentor.”
True. Though the conversation in which Cochran implores Darden to “choose a side” is not reported in Toobin’s book. In a Larry King interview years after the trial, they describe each other as friends, and Darden admits that before the trial, he tried to get a job with Cochran’s firm.
Before signing onto the defense’s team, Cochran called the Simpson case a “loser.”
Unclear. Toobin writes about the anecdote of an unnamed lawyer, who quotes Cochran as describing the case as “a loser.” In a later interview, Cochran denied the quote.
At Nicole Brown Simpson’s funeral, O.J. leaned down to kiss her in the casket.
True. During the 1996 civil trial, “Nicole Brown Simpson’s weeping mother testified Friday that O.J. Simpson leaned over his ex-wife’s coffin at her wake, kissed her on the lips and murmured, ‘I’m so sorry, Nicki. I’m so sorry.’”
Kourtney and Khloé Kardashian were playing and eating candy at Nicole Brown Simpson’s funeral.
Sort of true. At least some of the Kardashian kids attended the funeral: video of Kim (silky-sleek bob) and Kourtney shows the teens attending with mom Kris.
Simpson scored a “minus-24” on a lie-detector test, a “total failure.”
True. He scored as low as possible, and the administrator tried to convince Shapiro that it was “conclusive” evidence of his guilt; as a result of the failed polygraph, Shapiro began investigating a possible insanity defense.
Simpson contemplated suicide in Kim Kardashian’s bedroom.
Probably. Robert Kardashian died in 2003, but did recount in an interview with Barbara Walters his conversation with Simpson, wielding a gun, in the bedroom where Kim stayed when she was with her dad. In the show, Schwimmer instructing O.J. not to kill himself “in Kimmy’s bedroom” is a smart, hilarious nod to her future fame, both time travel and nostalgia. The first official mention of his having a gun in Toobin’s book, which considers Kardashian a largely unreliable source, is during the car chase, the start of which closes the episode in a macabre, hilarious twist.
O.J. signed his supposed suicide note with a smiley face.
True. Whether O.J. intended to harm himself when he wrote his three notes, which are so riddled with spelling errors that Toobin describes them as “near-illiterate,” is debated and, again, unknowable—but he did fill in the “O” with a happy face.
O.J. Simpson had a real-life statue of himself at his Rockingham estate.
True. It was auctioned off in 1999, as was much of Simpson’s estate, after the civil trial, brought against Simpson by the families of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, found him legally responsible for their deaths and ordered Simpson pay them $33 million. The statue, by Gene Logan, sold for $3,250.
Marcia Clark canceled a baby shower for a friend on the Monday that the O.J. Simpson case took over the L.A. District Attorney’s office.
Sort of true. Based on the film’s source material, The Run of His Life, she was helping to throw a bridal shower, not a baby shower, as in the show. This is a baffling, inconsequential deviation from the truth, perhaps intended to make Clark even more unlikeable. Sarah Paulson’s portrayal is already plenty brisk, and Clark was known as profane around the office, and she would refer to Simpson as “evil.”
The detectives completely bungled Simpson’s questioning.
Definitely true. The whole thing lasted only 32 minutes, and prosecutors really did refer to his interrogation as “the fiasco.”
Christopher Darden regarded Johnnie Cochran as a “mentor.”
True. Though the conversation in which Cochran implores Darden to “choose a side” is not reported in Toobin’s book. In a Larry King interview years after the trial, they describe each other as friends, and Darden admits that before the trial, he tried to get a job with Cochran’s firm.
Before signing onto the defense’s team, Cochran called the Simpson case a “loser.”
Unclear. Toobin writes about the anecdote of an unnamed lawyer, who quotes Cochran as describing the case as “a loser.” In a later interview, Cochran denied the quote.
At Nicole Brown Simpson’s funeral, O.J. leaned down to kiss her in the casket.
True. During the 1996 civil trial, “Nicole Brown Simpson’s weeping mother testified Friday that O.J. Simpson leaned over his ex-wife’s coffin at her wake, kissed her on the lips and murmured, ‘I’m so sorry, Nicki. I’m so sorry.’”
Kourtney and Khloé Kardashian were playing and eating candy at Nicole Brown Simpson’s funeral.
Sort of true. At least some of the Kardashian kids attended the funeral: video of Kim (silky-sleek bob) and Kourtney shows the teens attending with mom Kris.
Simpson scored a “minus-24” on a lie-detector test, a “total failure.”
True. He scored as low as possible, and the administrator tried to convince Shapiro that it was “conclusive” evidence of his guilt; as a result of the failed polygraph, Shapiro began investigating a possible insanity defense.
Simpson contemplated suicide in Kim Kardashian’s bedroom.
Probably. Robert Kardashian died in 2003, but did recount in an interview with Barbara Walters his conversation with Simpson, wielding a gun, in the bedroom where Kim stayed when she was with her dad. In the show, Schwimmer instructing O.J. not to kill himself “in Kimmy’s bedroom” is a smart, hilarious nod to her future fame, both time travel and nostalgia. The first official mention of his having a gun in Toobin’s book, which considers Kardashian a largely unreliable source, is during the car chase, the start of which closes the episode in a macabre, hilarious twist.
O.J. signed his supposed suicide note with a smiley face.
True. Whether O.J. intended to harm himself when he wrote his three notes, which are so riddled with spelling errors that Toobin describes them as “near-illiterate,” is debated and, again, unknowable—but he did fill in the “O” with a happy face.
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