OJ Simpson and the fatal flaw of jealousy

• Published date: 15 April 2024
• Publication title: Irish Times (Dublin, Ireland)

OJ Simpson was dead at 76. And that famous scene of violence was eerily quiet on a shimmering spring day in Los Angeles

I wrote nearly 30 years ago about the barbaric slayings of Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman at her condo, and the infamous trial that drilled into the most sensitive parts of the national psyche, exposing conflicting views about race and policing and celebrity and legal equality.

There were farcical elements of OJ Simpson’s “trial of the century”, from witness Kato Kaelin, the houseguest with the frosted shag who had starred in the comedy Beach Fever, to Judge Lance Ito, who was such a narcissistic camera hog that he became known as Judge Itomaniac.

But I always thought of it as a great American tragedy. It had echoes of Othello, the most trenchant work ever written on the fatal flaw of jealousy.

Othello was a hero, a black man beloved for his exploits on the field, a man who conquered racial setbacks and beguiled his fans and soared to great heights.

He was married to a beautiful younger woman. But, thanks to Iago – a deputy to the general who was jealous himself because he was passed over for a promotion in favour of another aide de camp – Othello was poisoned with jealousy, unable to cope with the demons in his head.

Desdemona, his wife, was confused, because Othello was spun up over false information. Her servant, Emilia, explained that jealous people “are not ever jealous for the cause, but jealous for they’re jealous. It is a monster, begot upon itself, born on itself”.

Othello murdered Desdemona, while still loving her.

The lawyer who got OJ off

A year after OJ’s murder trial, I stood in line behind the football legend’s lawyer, Johnnie “If the glove don’t fit, you must acquit” Cochran, at Bill Clinton’s second inaugural.

Cochran, who acted as if the Simpson case was a...