Investigation Discovery’s upcoming docuseries O.J. Unseen: Exploitation of Evil promises to show a “different side” of O.J. Simpson, director Rebecca Halpern exclusively told Us ahead of the premiere.
O.J. Unseen: Exploitation of Evil sheds light on the disgraced football player’s prank reality show, Juiced. The show, which was scrapped before it ever premiered, featured Simpson performing pranks on unsuspecting people one decade after he was acquitted of the murders of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ron Goldman.
While Simpson was found not guilty in 1995 and died in 2024 at the age of 76 following a battle with cancer, he has remained relevant in the pop culture zeitgeist. While discussing the docuseries, Halpern spoke to Us about why people are still so interested in the polarizing figure.
Halpern said Simpson is “relevant because of the questions that still remain around his case.”
“Viewers are going to watch this and see a different side of O.J. than they’ve ever seen before, thanks to the 100 hours of behind-the-scenes footage that we have. He’s going to make confessions. He’s going to say things that are going to blow people’s minds,” she said. “And when you see him in the context of some of these sketches, it’s really remarkable that any decent, normal, nice, kind human being would ever put themselves in that kind of a circumstance after having been accused of the things he was accused of.”
Halpern went on to note that Simpson “should have slinked into oblivion” after he was acquitted of the murders.
“He should have gone off and played golf and been quiet and kept to himself,” she added. “But he just couldn’t help himself, and so in a lot of ways, this show is a case study in megalomania and narcissism.”
While Simpson was initially cleared of the murder charges, he was found civilly liable for the wrongful death of Goldman, 25, and the battery of Brown Simpson, 35, in 1997. As a result, he was ordered to pay $33.5 million in damages.
Years after the case came to an end, Simpson filmed the never-released prank show. Halpern described Juiced to Us as “Simpson shocking innocent victims in scenes inspired from his own true crime case.”
“He decided to film it 10 years after he was acquitted of murder. He had reached rock bottom in his life and needed to prove to the world that he was beloved, and so he used Juiced … as sort of his trial to prove his case in the court of public opinion that he is actually a beloved figure in the world,” she explained.
Halpern added that the docuseries “takes viewers through the two-week production process of the making of Juiced through the lens of the crew and the creator that made it.”
O.J. Unseen: Exploitation of Evil will premiere on Monday, September 7, and Tuesday, September 8, at 9 p.m. ET on ID. Episodes will also be available to stream on HBO Max.
