“He made stabbing movements with the banana.”

Following the death of OJ Simpson this week, veteran TV presenter and comedian Ruby Wax has written about the time she spent interviewing the football legend-turned-pariah for her BBC chat show.

In 1998, Wax traveled to Los Angeles, where she spent 17 hours with Simpson. Registered mail The Times of London This weekend, she said the moment he reenacted the alleged murders of his ex-wife Nicole and her friend Ron Goldman – for which he endured the “trial of the century” before being acquitted in 1995 – wasn't even the strangest been part of the day.

More from Deadline

Wax writes:

“After a crazy 17 hours of filming, I asked him one last time if he was involved in the 1994 murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. I was sure we could get him to confess. But he just turned to the camera, said “No,” and smiled ruefully.”

Wax recalls an incident when she returned to her hotel room after filming was completed:

“There was a knock on the door. It was Simpson who made stabbing movements with a banana held over his head and screamed, in the spirit of the famous shower scene from Alfred Hitchcock's work Psycho.”

Wax recalls an equally strange incident at dinner the night before, when Simpson asked her if she wanted to know his favorite poem:

“He discussed the poem about Lizzie Borden, who was tried and acquitted in Massachusetts in 1892 for killing her father and stepmother: “Lizzie Borden took an ax/ and gave her mother forty blows/ when she saw what she had done/ gave her.” her father was forty-one.'”

She adds: “The last time I spoke to him was, I think, April 1, 1998, shortly after we finished filming. He called me here in London and said, 'Hello, this is OJ.' I did.' Then he said 'April Fools' and hung up.”

The story goes on

Read Wax’s full article here

Wax interviewed Simpson in 1998, just over two years after he was famously acquitted of a double murder. In February 1997, the former football star and actor was found guilty in a civil lawsuit brought by the victims' families and was fined $33 million in damages – three times that amount is still owed today. Simpson died on April 10, 2024 at the age of 76.

Best of Deadline

Sign up for the Deadline newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.