Simpson spent a lifetime passing himself off as the genial Juice, an affable guy who went from sports hero to TV pitchman to smiling joke in a Leslie Nielsen movie. Then, he made the terrible discovery that his disguise no longer fit.

This article originally appeared in the November 1994 issue of Esquire, in the midst of the O.J. Simpson murder trial. It may contain outdated and potentially offensive descriptions of sex, ethnicity…