O.J. Simpson’s father, Jimmy Lee Simpson, a custodian at the Federal Reserve Bank, left his family when O.J. was just four years old. After that, he rarely came back to see his children. As the football great told Parents magazine in 1977 (via Yahoo Entertainment), it essentially ruined their relationship. “I resented his absence, especially when I became a teenager and was trying to find out who I was,” he admitted. “I really needed a man around then for guidance.”
Their bond may have been further strained by the fact that Jimmy Lee was gay. As O.J.’s childhood friend, Joe Bell, explained in a 2016 documentary called “OJ: Made In America,” that came with a lot of backlash. “Back in our day, that was the worst thing in the world that you could ever think about: an African-American man being a homosexual,” Bell said, per MailOnline.
While O.J. and his dad eventually moved past the animosity, Jimmy Lee’s name was noticeably absent from O.J.’s Pro Football Hall of Fame induction speech. Instead, he lavished plenty of praise on his mom, Eunice Simpson, gushing, per The New York Times, “You just don’t know what it is to be eight years old and all your friends think you have the best mother in the neighborhood.”
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