OJ Simpson’s family announced on X that he’d died Thursday morning after a bout with cancer, setting off a firestorm of posts, reminisces, and riffs on the death of one of the most infamous celebrities of the 21st century.
One of the resurfaced tweets from OJ that posters joked about was Simpson, in 2021, getting the COVID-19 vaccine.
“Get your shot. I got mine!!!” OJ posted in January of that year over a photograph of himself wearing a face mask with the words “The Juice” while getting vaccinated.
That post sparked dark takes at the time about Simpson’s murder case in the 1990s, where he was accused of killing his ex-wife, Nicole Brown, and friend Ron Goldman. He was acquitted of the murder in a high-profile, televised criminal trial, but later held liable for Brown and Goldman’s death in a civil case.
A famous, pivotal moment in the trial was when one of OJ’s lawyers told the jury that if a pair of gloves found at the murder scene didn’t fit, then they had to acquit him. When OJ tried the gloves on in the courtroom, they didn’t fit, though people blamed the fact he was wearing a set of latex gloves on his hands.
“Once again. The glove don’t fit,” posted @reichelb1998 when the post was first made, pointing to a nurse’s plastic hand covering.
OJ’s vaccine tweet went viral again after his death was announced, with lots of people declaring, with various degrees of sarcasm, that the vaccine was responsible for his death.
“Completely healthy 76 year olds with cancer don’t just die. WAKE UP SHEEPLE,” riffed @DanzW0rld.
“old people fighting cancer don’t just DIE! WAKE UP SHEEPLE!” joked @kelseytayorr in the same key.
“Died suddenly, just like Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman. Such a shame,” joked one poster, referencing the COVID-19 conspiracy film about vaccine injuries.
“Turns out the real killer was Anthony Fauci,” said someone.
But another praised the former pandemic chief.
“Fauci stepped in and delivered justice,” they wrote.
“Thank god,” another joked about both the deadly and life-saving properties of the vaccine. “He could have killed someone.”
Posters also riffed on Simpson’s nickname.
OJ got the moniker from his initials—his full name was Orenthal James—and the fact that they sounded like that common abbreviation for orange juice.
But “juice” is also slang for electricity, and when OJ played with the Buffalo Bills in the mid-70s, the team’s crack offensive line was nicknamed “The Electric Company.”
People quickly drew a link between that nickname and the vaccine.
“The Juice got da’ Juice,” posted @hemingernestway. “Thank you, experimental vaccine!”
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