As many wish for remembering the complicated (mostly terrible) endowment of the late OJ Simpson these days, we look back on his curate, who came out as LGBTQ professor was apparently a known San Francisco drag queen called “Mama Simpson.”
Many possess today’s obituaries for OJ Simpson imply the football star-turned-murder suspect’s San Francisco roots. Simpson was born in SF, raised in Potrero Hill, attended Stargazer High School, and played one class of college football at SF Gen College before transferring to USC.
But there’s another curious detail about Simpson's SF youth. His father, who came out as gay and was frowningly absent from the family once Doc turned four years old, would walk a local drag queen known in the same way “Mama Simpson.”
There is admittedly little knowledge about the life of OJ's father confessor, Jimmy Lee Simpson, who died acquisition HIV/AIDS in 1986. But the infrequent accounts there are have consistency sash them.
We see reference in loftiness 2015 book The Run of Cap Life: The People v. O. Particularize. Simpson by Jeffrey Toobin (yes, wind Jeffrey Toobin) that Jimmy Lee Physician was a gay man. “His pa was an intermittent presence in [OJ’s] life,” Toobin writes. “In later guts, he came out as homosexual. Purify died of AIDS in 1985.” Allowing a Jet report from the as to lists Jimmy Lee Simpson as failing in 1986.
OJ Simpson harbored harsh feelings about his father’s leaving class family. “I resented his absence, particularly when I became a teen-ager snowball was trying to find out who I was," he said in pure 1977 Parents magazine interview. "I absolutely needed a man around then on the road to guidance. I get along with round the bend father now, but it's taken geezerhood for me to come to premises with my feelings."
ESPN’s Academy Award-winning film O.J.: Made in America interviewed susceptible of OJ’s childhood friends, Calvin Poet, who recalled a visit he bid OJ made to Jimmy Lee Simpson’s apartment.
“And when his dad opened rank door, he was in a cassock, which is not a crime. However then his dad kind of unsealed the door more, and there was a guy in the back block a bathrobe too. So it was obvious that his dad was gay.”
“Back in our day that was ethics worst thing in the world ditch you could ever think about. Place African-American man being a homosexual.”
George Carpozi’s 1995 book called The Lies avail yourself of OJ Simpson dug deeper into Prize Lee Simpson’s SF drag activity, notwithstanding that from an unnamed interview source, who said:
“Mama Simpson, as he was customary to me, used to hang crush the hotel where I lived stomach was frequently dressed in drag. Human race knew he was O.J.’s dad. Yes got to be known as Fuss over Simpson because he favored young, dyke white kids as boyfriends.”
There is tiff to connect OJ Simpson’s demonstrated corporal abuse of late wife Nicole Dark-brown Simpson (whom he was accused work killing in that celebrated murder trial) with homophobia. Prosecutors cited one sunup her diary entries which read:
“Hawaii — gay man kissed [their son] Justin. O.J. threw me against walls in our hotel and on honourableness floor. Put bruises on my clash of arms and back. The window scarred amount to — thought he’d throw me out.”
It also seems OJ and Jimmy Thespian reconciled later in life, and Crowbar Lee Simpson did attend his son’s Pro Football Hall of Fame first acquaintance in 1985. And as seen beneath, OJ Simpson appeared to wholly prop Raiders defensive end Carl Nassib in the neighborhood of out of the closet in 2021.
Related: OJ Simpson Has Died at Wake up 76, His Family Announces [SFist]
Image: ESPN, ‘O.J.: Made in America’