‘Juiced’ Creators Recall Hoping Drunk O.J. Simpson Would Confess to Murder in ID’s New Doc About Notorious Prank Show

A controversial prank show starring O.J. Simpson was angling to capture a major moment on tape, those involved in the production confess. 

ID’s new docuseries, O.J. Unseen: Exploitation of Evil, looks at the chaotic making of Juiced, a Punk’d-esque series that featured the accused double murderer donning goofy disguises or showing up in unexpected situations, with the goal of surprising regular people. 

O.J. Simpson was searching for validation with reality TV series 

Juiced was divisive from the jump. Director Todd Lewis’ girlfriend dumped him over his involvement in the project, while many people simply refused to work on it at all. But O.J. was all-in as he attempted to recapture the fame and adulation he enjoyed prior to his 1995 trial for murdering his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ronald Goldman. 

“O.J. was looking for validation,” Juiced second unit director Martin Palafox says in the two-part series, which premieres September 6. 

But the team behind the cameras was after something else. 

“The prank show was a mechanism to try to get the confession,” Lewis says. “I did feel that we could push this guy to a point where we could get O.J.’s confession.”

Juiced captured some strange and unsettling moments involving O.J., including him attempting to sell a used white Ford Bronco, which he praises for its “escapability.” In another sketch, he violently threatens a man who appears to believe that O.J. was sleeping with his wife. (In reality, the man was an actor who was in on the gag.) And in a behind-the-scenes clip, O.J. urges his then-girlfriend to tell everyone that the obvious bruises on her arm are a birthmark. 

Former NFL star ‘liked the sauce’ 

However, despite many eyebrow-raising moments, O.J. never explicitly admitted to murder. But once he started drinking, he did share his candid thoughts about his high-profile trial. 

“No one called out the elephant in the room. He liked the sauce. He was fond of the drink,” Lewis says, adding  that O.J. often showed up to shoot either hungover or “drink in hand.” And once he started drinking more, he started talking “about things he really shouldn’t be talking about.”

“Initially, we didn’t want anything to do with the murders. I wanted to stay far away from that … but when O.J. started talking about trial stuff, I was happy to film,” Lewis shares.  

“I’d been told that O.J. was tight-lipped,” he adds. “There was no talk of the trial, the murders, nothing. But you get a couple of cocktails in this guy, and he was a chatty Cathy.” 

“O.J.’s drinking released the floodgates,” Juiced creator Rick Mahr says. “Ten years removed from the trial and here he is talking about it.”

“He started to go to where we all knew why we’re all here,” he adds. 

In conversations captured by Juiced’s camera crew, O.J. complains about people fixating on the “bloody Bronco,” vents about feeling like he’s a victim of media persecution, and claims that his acquittal was no surprise.  

“All the law enforcement guys knew that the verdict would be not guilty,” the former NFL star declares. “Yet the pundits, because they were all wrong, and all their theories were screwed up, they blamed everything under the sun. They blamed [Lance] Ito, they blamed Johnnie Cochran … they blamed [Eric] Garcetti, they blamed Marcia [Clark] and the way they put the trial on.” 

“I know who did it,” he says. “I know exactly who did it.”

O.J. Unseen: Exploitation of Evil airs Monday, September 6 and Tuesday, September 7 at 9 p.m. ET/PT on ID. Episodes also stream on HBO Max.

For more​​ news and exclusive interviews, follow Showbiz Cheat Sheet’s Instagram.