O.J. Simpson to Bob Costas during prison visit: You did it!

[Music] i had cut my finger so i had a bandage no joke i had a bandage on my finger and this little bit of blood and i put and he goes wait a minute wait a minute you did it tell about how oj uh simpson tried to contact you during the bronco chase and then you subsequently visited him in jail yeah well o.j and i had been very friendly we worked on the football show together for a number of years on nbc o.j was a very affable man i had no real understanding of some of the domestic violence that took place in his relationship uh with nicole [Music] and so all of us were stunned when we heard about the murders on a sunday night and our first thought was oh what a tragedy for o.j and and his family and then as 48 72 hours went by the realization set in he's a suspect here now friday is when they announce that they're seeking his arrest but he's disappeared and they announced that he's a fugitive you can hear all the reporters gasping like this is something out of a b movie that night is game five of the nba finals at madison square garden between the knicks and the rockets so when the world finally comes to understand that he's making his way down the 405 slow speed bronco chase almost every other network and station goes live to that and the whole country is transfixed by it but dick ebersole has to make a decision and so part of the time they go to tom brokaw who's at 30 rock i'm at madison square garden marv albert's calling the game i have to kind of bridge between tom and marv and of course at that time you don't know what's going to happen we know that he just got out of the car at his house in brentwood and and gave himself up peacefully but you didn't know if he'd kill himself you didn't know if there'd be a gun battle when he got out of the car he had no idea he says he's got a gun to his head ac cowling's his former buffalo teammate and long time friend is is telling the police that that's what's going on okay so we do what we do the uh the knicks win the game so i'm sitting around the hotel on monday and a woman whose name i forget never heard it before since from time magazine calls and says we hear that o.j tried to call you from the bronco and i say truthfully i think no that never happened okay the conversation lasts a minute now fast forward several months it's november of 94. the trial doesn't start till january he's in the l.a county jail he had sent word through intermediaries that when i was in los angeles he'd like to see me so robert kardashian who's part of his defense team picks me up at the hotel and takes me to the l.a county jail and it's me ac cowlings and kardashian on one side of the glass and oj in a blue prison outfit looked to me like he'd lost about 20 pounds he comes walking in sits on a stool opposite us and the way you shake hands is you put your hand up against his against the glass and i had cut my finger so i had a bandage no joke i had a bandage on my finger and this little bit of blood and i put and he goes wait a minute wait a minute you did it like he's like it's a joke right and so we sit there and the whole time he's you know gently trying to convince me that he couldn't possibly have done this if i did do something like this i'm a smart guy would i leave a glove in the driveway and i'm thinking without saying it once you cross this unthinkable line and do something like this if you did then all bets are off about your past patterns of behavior but what i said to everything he said was well you'll have a chance to tell your story in court at one point a.c cowlings pipes up and he says you know we tried to call you from the back of the bronco like now i'm thinking about the lady from time magazine and he called my house in st louis i wasn't there and he had the number of the studio but since it was the finals we were at the site we're at madison square garden so he calls the phone rings and rings and finally someone picks it up and it's a tech guy an engineer does bob costa say no he's not there i got to speak to bobcat he's not here i have to speak to bob costas right now he's at madison square garden i have to speak to him who's calling oj simpson yeah right click and the guy hangs up the phone because what would you think it's a prank right okay so i don't find out about this until until months later now if somehow we had actually connected and was already one of the most memorable moments in television history the whole it's like the moon landing everyone's watching it um but i would have had to have asked him some rather pointed questions regardless of what his answers would have been oh jay did you do it if you didn't do it what are you doing running what are you doing with a gun to your head in the back of the car but it never it never came to pass and that was the last time that i saw or spoke to oj it was yeah november of 1994.

Channel: Graham Bensinger

Views: 761,408

Keywords: Graham Bensinger, In Depth with Graham Bensinger, Sports Interview, Feature Interview, Sports Journalism, Bob Costas, Bob Costas interview, O.J. Simpson, O.J. Simpson interview, O.J. Simpson prison, sportscasting, O.J. Simpson Bronco, O.J. Simpson Bob Costas

Id: A3iLSqyM9vM

Length: 5min 47sec (347 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 23 2022