“They’re exceptionally nice," Simpson told the Summit Daily News in 2006, noting that Summit County was home to the friendliest people he had ever met.
"I don’t want to say Mayberry, but I’d say Stepford," Simpson said. "It's hard to believe you still get a good neighborly feel somewhere. People are happy to just say, ‘Hi, welcome.’ Normally everyone wants something — an autograph, a picture."
Simpson, who was found not guilty of the 1994 killing of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown, and her friend Ron Goldman in one of the world's most infamous and criticized murder trials, was announced dead by his family today, April 11, as a result of cancer. He was 76.
People often saw "the Juice" on the loose at Colorado mountain haunts throughout the years, according to the Summit Daily, including Dillon’s tiki bar and Farley’s in Frisco. The paper described one night in particular back in 2006 that "nearly did in" the notorious football phenom.
“People were buying me drinks, and I didn’t want to say no, and before you know it, I had four shots of tequila at the Tiki Bar,” Simpson said of the night out in Breckenridge. “So by the time I got here with my group, I was totally plastered.”
I met OJ Simpson in Vail on New Years Eve #yeahididthat @jimmyfallon pic.twitter.com/FiwzqxeB
— Matthew (@JunkInEuroTrunk) October 12, 2011
Summit County residents and local associates of Simpson's described him as "humble" and "down to earth" over the years. He was reportedly looking at real estate in the area at one point, including a Breckenridge home on Ski Hill Road, but insisted that he was only interested in vacationing.
Simpson was convicted in 2008 of felony robbery of sports memorabilia that used to belong to him, then released on parole in 2017. He was most recently spotted in Colorado back in 2019, when he was photographed taking selfies with people.
According to the Vail Daily, he spent a night at Bridge Street Bar, where a band was caught on video playing a remixed version of Richie Valens’s "La Bamba" with the chorus changed to “I drive a big fucking Bronco.”
"I drive a big fucking Bronco, a big OJ Bronco, a ’93 Bronco," sings Scott Munns in the video.
O.J. in Summit County
Simpson said that most of his Colorado friends lived in Aspen, but Summit County was where he felt most welcome. Former Mountain Gazette editor M. John Fayhee wrote about the area's obsession with Simpson in a 2017 blog post:"Over the course of three years, O.J. Simpson took at least a half-dozen vacation trips to altitudinous Summit County," Fayhee said. "The weird(est) part of the whole Simpson-visits-Summit-County saga (at least to me) was that people — locals and visitors alike — lined up to have their pictures taken with The Juice, and word had it that when he ventured into Downstairs at Eric’s in Breckenridge or Farley’s (now the Fifth Avenue Grill) in Frisco...he rarely had to pay for his own drinks. He was treated not like a probable double-murderer, but, rather, like the first man to ever rush for more than 2,000 yards in a single (14-game) season, like the man who won the Heisman Trophy in 1968, like the five-time Pro Bowl selection."
According to Fayhee, Simpson would regularly be "toasted, lauded and welcomed" when he visited, much like famous Denver Broncos quarterback John Elway, who used to own a home in Summit County. Over the years, people described Simpson as "the very definition of friendliness, decorum and humility," according to Fayhee.
Hiking, rafting, playing golf — often at the River Course in Keystone — and getting liquored up were some of Simpson's favorite mountain pastimes. He was said to have fit in well with the Summit County locals, despite his past.
“I thought he was a first-class act," said one resident who met Simpson and spoke to the Summit Daily News in 2006.
Details Around O.J. Simpson's Death
An X account created by Simpson in 2019 — the only form of social media that he regularly used — has a following of nearly 900,000 people. His last post was made on February 11 and included a video update on his health, which was optimistic at the time.The family of the former running back, as well as the Pro Football Hall of Fame, announced his death in a statement Thursday, saying he was in the middle of receiving chemotherapy treatment for prostate cancer. Since the news dropped, sports analysts have discussed the impact Simpson had on pop culture before and after his arrest for murder.
"He was not just admired, but beloved," longtime sportscaster Bob Costas told CNN on Thursday. "He was...if not the first, he was the first to do it in a big way — an African American who broke through."
Costas, who was a personal friend of Simpson's, said that despite his history, there was an aura and quality to him that people seem to gravitate to. "Everything about him, people feel it, more or less," Costas said.
Fayhee wondered in his blog post what it said about people, specifically in Summit County, to be drawn to a person like Simpson.
"What thoughts go through this man’s head as he goes about the business of living in a society where he is ridiculed behind his back but still treated like a celebrity out in public? Does he regret his choices? Or does he smirk at the thought of having dodged one very serious bullet that was aimed directly at his head?" he wrote. "And, more than that: What were the other paying customers thinking about sharing a raft with none other than O.J. Simpson, a man that many people believe has blood on his hands. Did that blood rub off on the paddles?"
