He was the Juice. He was the Heisman winner, the Hertz pitchman, the guy leaping over luggage in airports with a million-dollar smile. Then, he was the man in the white Bronco. Most people remember the Trial of the Century, but they often forget that the courtroom drama birthed a bizarre literary trail. When you look at the list of books written by OJ Simpson, you aren't just looking at sports memoirs or celebrity fluff. You are looking at a desperate, calculated, and often disturbing attempt to reclaim a narrative that had already spun out of control.
It’s weird to think about now.
O.J. didn't just sit back and let the lawyers do the talking. He wrote. Or, more accurately, he collaborated. These books represent different stages of his public life: the superstar athlete, the accused man behind bars, and the pariah trying to make a buck off a hypothetical confession.
The Early Days: Education of an Athlete
Long before the world knew the names Marcia Clark or Johnnie Cochran, O.J. Simpson was a hero. His first major foray into the world of publishing was O.J.: The Education of an Athlete, published in 1970. This wasn't a scandal book. It was a standard, gritty look at a kid from the Potrero Hill district of San Francisco who made it big.
He talks about the Rulers, his childhood street gang. He talks about his first wife, Marguerite. It’s actually a pretty decent look at the sociology of sports in the 60s. At the time, he was the golden boy. Nobody reading that book in 1970 could have predicted the sheer volume of true crime paperbacks that would eventually surround his name. It’s a relic of a lost era.
Writing From a Jail Cell
Fast forward to 1995. O.J. is in the Men’s Central Jail in Los Angeles. The trial is a circus. While he’s waiting for a verdict, he releases I Want to Tell You: My Response to Your Letters, Your Messages, Your Questions.
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Honestly? It's a strange read.
The book is basically a compilation of his responses to the massive amounts of fan mail (and hate mail) he received during the trial. He spent hours in his cell reading these letters. Lawrence Schiller, who later wrote American Tragedy, helped pull the project together. In the book, Simpson maintains his innocence with a kind of eerie calm. He talks about his kids, his grief over Nicole, and his frustration with the prosecution.
People bought it. A lot of people. It became a New York Times bestseller almost instantly because everyone wanted a glimpse into the mind of the man in the cell. It was the first time books written by OJ Simpson shifted from "sports inspiration" to "legal defense strategy." He was using the medium of the book to bypass the judge and jury and speak directly to the public.
He sounded like a victim. He sounded like a man who was being framed by a racist system. Depending on who you ask, it was either a sincere plea for understanding or a masterclass in manipulation.
The Giant Elephant in the Room: If I Did It
We have to talk about the 2006 disaster. This is the one everyone knows, even if they haven't read a single page of it. If I Did It is one of the most controversial moments in the history of American publishing.
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The premise was ghoulish. It was a "hypothetical" account of the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. O.J. worked with a ghostwriter named Pablo Fenjves. The idea was that O.J. would describe how the killings would have happened if he had been the one to do them.
The backlash was instant. It was nuclear.
Regis Philbin and Bill O'Reilly were screaming about it on TV. News Corp, which owned the original publisher ReganBooks, ended up canceling the project because the public outcry was so intense. They actually destroyed hundreds of thousands of copies. But as we know, the story didn't end there.
The Goldman Family Takeover
After a civil jury found Simpson liable for the deaths in 1997, he owed the Goldman family millions of dollars—money he never paid. When the If I Did It manuscript surfaced, the Goldmans saw an opportunity. Not for the money, but for the rights. They sued to get the rights to the book as part of the unpaid judgment.
They won.
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When they republished it, they didn't change O.J.'s words, but they changed the context. They added "Confessions of the Killer" to the title in a tiny font inside the word "IF." They added commentary from the family and the ghostwriter. Pablo Fenjves later said that O.J. didn't act like a man describing a fantasy; he acted like a man recounting a memory.
If you read the chapter "The Night in Question," it is chilling. It describes a "friend" named Charlie who accompanies O.J. to Nicole's condo. It describes a "blackout" where O.J. "wakes up" covered in blood. It is some of the most uncomfortable prose ever printed. It’s the centerpiece of any discussion about books written by OJ Simpson because it feels like a taunt.
The Ghostwriters Behind the Curtain
O.J. wasn't a "writer" in the traditional sense. He was a storyteller. He needed people to translate his charisma (or his defense) into something readable.
- Lawrence Schiller: A veteran journalist and filmmaker who became O.J.'s conduit to the outside world during the trial. Schiller was a controversial figure himself, often accused of checkbook journalism, but he knew how to move books.
- Pablo Fenjves: The man who sat across from O.J. for If I Did It. Fenjves has been very vocal since then, stating that he believes O.J. was confessing through the veil of "hypothetical" scenarios.
- The Legal Teams: Every book O.J. put out while the 1995 trial or the subsequent civil trial was active had to be vetted by lawyers. These weren't just books; they were legal exhibits in the court of public opinion.
Why This Matters in the History of True Crime
We live in a world of 24/7 true crime podcasts and Netflix documentaries. But the books written by OJ Simpson were the precursors to our current obsession. They showed that a defendant could be a media mogul. They proved that even if you are acquitted, the public never stops reading, searching, and questioning.
The transition from the 1970 athletic memoir to the 2006 "hypothetical" confession is a tragedy in several acts. It shows the total deconstruction of an American icon. You can track his mental state through these pages—from the confident athlete to the indignant prisoner to the man who was eventually willing to sell a murder story for a payday.
Actionable Insights for the Curious
If you are looking to understand the O.J. Simpson saga through his own words, you need to be a critical reader. Don't take the prose at face value.
- Compare the voices: Read a chapter of The Education of an Athlete and then a chapter of If I Did It. The change in tone is jarring. The first is a man with everything to gain; the second is a man with nothing left to lose.
- Look for the gaps: In I Want to Tell You, pay attention to what he doesn't say. He talks a lot about his feelings, but very little about the specific evidence of the day.
- Context is everything: If you buy a copy of If I Did It, make sure it’s the Goldman version. The additional commentary from the victims' families provides a necessary counterbalance to O.J.'s narrative.
- Check the libraries: Many of these books are out of print or hard to find in their original editions. Used book stores and digital archives are your best bet for seeing the original formatting and photography.
O.J. Simpson's bibliography is small, but it weighs heavy on the cultural conscience. It serves as a reminder that the truth is often buried under layers of celebrity, legal maneuvering, and the desperate need to be heard. Whether he was innocent or guilty, his books remain some of the most analyzed documents in American legal history. They are a window into a specific kind of fame that doesn't exist anymore—a fame that could burn down the world and then try to sell you the ashes in a hardcover edition.