OJ Simpson was “chilling” with a beer on his couch just two weeks before he died of cancer last week, his longtime lawyer recalled.
“He was awake, alert and chilling. He’s on the couch … drinking a beer and watching TV,” attorney Malcom LaVergne said of the late football star-turned-convicted felon, who died on April 10 at age 76.
“And so that was the last time we had effective back-and-forth conversations. He’s usually the one who keeps me up on the news … so we were just catching up on the news then,” LaVergne explained of the visit, which took place just before Easter at the home Simpson rented near the Las Vegas Strip.
By April 5, however, a doctor said that Simpson – who was diagnosed with prostate cancer earlier last year – was “transitioning,” the lawyer said.
The last time LaVergne visited with his ailing client, the former athlete was so weak he could only ask for water and chose to watch a golf tournament on television.
“Of course he chose golf. He was an absolute golf fanatic,” LaVergne said.
The announcement from Simpson’s family the day after his death claimed he was “surrounded by his children and grandchildren” when he passed, but LaVergne said only one “close family member” was actually there when he died.
LaVergne declined to identify the individual.
“You have to remember that they’ve shared O.J. with the world their entire lives,” the attorney said of Simpson’s family.
At the time of his death, Simpson had four adult children: Arnelle, 55, and Jason, 53, from his first marriage, and Sydney, 38, and Justin, 35, from his second marriage with Nicole Brown Simpson.
Simpson and Brown first met when the latter was just 18 years old.
They were married in 1985 and divorced in 1992, following what Brown described as a violent relationship marred by Simpson’s serious physical abuse.
Brown and her friend, Ron Goldman, were found stabbed to death outside her Brentwood home in June 1994.
The ensuing media craze surrounding Simpson’s arrest, trial, and acquittal for the grisly murders had a lasting effect on his family, LaVergne said.
“At first they shared good O.J. But still he was famous. And then, in 1994 on, they kind of had to share bad boy O.J. with the world,” the attorney noted.
“But at the end of the day, these children just lost a father. And they have the added burden that he is one of the most famous people on the planet, and who is polarizing and who is surrounded by controversy,” he reasoned.
LaVergne started representing Simpson in 2009.
He slammed queries about a possible deathbed confession as an attempt to redirect “from somber to the sensationalism and the amusement.”
“Mr. Simpson, to my understanding, had expressed his wishes to his children. And so they are going to act upon those wishes,” LaVergne said of the plans to cremate Simpson.
Shortly after Simpson’s death last week, LaVergne made headlines when he slammed Ron Goldman’s family’s claim that they were still owed millions of dollars from the wrongful death judgment that held Simpson civilly liable for the 1994 murders.
At the time, LaVergne, who is handling the estate, said he hoped “the Goldmans get zero, nothing” from his client’s remaining assets.
He reversed course on Monday, and told the Hollywood Reporter that “Fred Goldman’s claim will be accepted. And his claim will be handled in accordance with Nevada law.”
The value of Simpson’s estate is still being tallied, LaVergne said on Tuesday.
In addition to the civil judgment from 1997, Simpson also went to prison for nine years after being found guilty of armed robbery in Nevada.
LaVergne acknowledged that, at the time of his death, Simpson had still not paid the majority of the civil judgment to the Brown and Goldman families.
According to the Goldman family attorney, the initial $33.5 million judgment has ballooned to well over $100 million.
With Post wires
