The question veteran sports journalist Chris Myers asked O.J. Simpson during a live interview in 1998 remains one of the best to have ever been asked on live TV.
“Are you capable of killing somebody,” Myers asked O.J. as ESPN cameras were rolling.
During a Tuesday appearance on OutKick’s “Ricky Cobb Show,” Myers shared his memories of that moment in time and how he ended up with this coveted live interview with a man whom many presumed to have rammed a knife into his wife and her friend Ron Goldman.
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Now a Fox Sports broadcaster, Myers says O.J. was a fan of his “Up Close” show on ESPN and was a regular viewer. Simpson told Myers he wanted to come on because of the way interviews were conducted and that they were fair.
Chris Myers On His Involvement In The Infamous Oj Simpson TrialThe Ricky Cobb Show
Myers was told that Simpson turned down Barbara Walters because she wouldn’t do the interview live. Juice, Myers says, didn’t want the interview to be taped in order to prevent editing.
Juice had two conditions for ESPN and Myers: It had to be live and questions about his children were off-limits.
Deal. Myers was in.
“I went in open-minded, but there’s no way he didn’t do it, in my eyes, after studying and preparing for this,” Myers told Cobb. “I had to be fair when questioning him. Yes, I was going to ask the questions people wanted to ask. But I wasn’t going to be the judge and jury myself.”
And then, two minutes into the interview, Myers asks a question that should be studied by broadcast journalists.
“The tough question was, ‘Are you capable of killing?’” Myers remembered.
O.J. wasn’t expecting it.
“You know, I would say, actually, I would say no,” a perplexed Juice replied while looking at the ground. “Even though I’m sure, um, I’m sure if someone was presenting imminent danger to my kids, I’m sure everybody would be capable.”
Only after being pressed by Myers did Juice say he’d kill someone for Nicole.
Could love cause Juice to kill?
“I don’t think so,” O.J. told Myers.
Later in 1998, Fox Sports swooped in and hired Myers away from ESPN while O.J. went on to star in a hidden prank show where he’d yell “You’ve been Juiced!” at people who fell for pranks.
“I think ultimately his greatest punishment before he was later arrested was that this was a guy who really needed public approval at any scale, at any price,” Myers said today while noting that O.J. being shunned by society “was probably his punishment before the later arrest” for a hotel room invasion at gunpoint that resulted in jail time.
With O.J. dead and gone, Myers now looks back at the craziness surrounding the interview and shakes his head.
“There were interesting things in the interview. We were live and we were showing photos of [Nicole Brown-Simpson] when he had his domestic violence charges. We go to a commercial break and his media rep comes running out of the green room yelling to me, ‘You can’t ask these questions,’ and OJ was like, ‘No, no, I got this. This is fine.’”
“Then he turns to me in a casual moment and says, ‘Hey, I got a tee time out at Riviera Country Club next week and we have an opening in our foursome if you want to join us.”
O.J. Simpson and Nicole Brown Simpson arrive at the premiere of the “Naked Gun 33 1/3: The Final Isult” in which O.J. starred on March 16, 1994 in Los Angeles, California. She was murdered on June 12, 1994. (Photo by Vinnie Zuffante/Getty Images)
Myers says he was shocked. “It just showed me his disengagement.”
“There were moments when he tried to be intimidating. He was the one guy who I never really shook his hand. I just thanked him for being on and he sarcastically said, ‘Hey, it was great talkin’ sports with ya.'”
“Of course we didn’t talk sports for the 15 minutes.”
