A friend and former manager of O.J. Simpson says he laughed at Cuba Gooding Jr.’s portrayal of the former NFL star in the FX miniseries “American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson.”
Norman Pardo also said today on “Good Morning America” that even though Simpson is not happy with the miniseries that takes viewers back to his criminal trial in the slayings of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman, Simpson, who was found not guilty, is likely watching the miniseries from prison.
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Simpson has long denied he had anything to do with the deaths of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman. Now 68, he is serving a prison sentence for a 2007 robbery and kidnapping conviction in Las Vegas.
Pardo described Simpson as leading an isolated life behind bars.
“He really likes to be left alone,” Pardo said. “When we have friends that go visit him, he’ll visit them for a minute or two and then he’s got to go."
"He’s said, ‘I’ve got to go back in there, we’re working on fantasy football things,’ or things like that," Pardo said of his former client. "He actually leaves them there, which is really weird because they drive three days to get there.”
Pardo claims to have about 70 hours’ worth of videotape of Simpson from their years together but says no one from FX reached out to him for the miniseries. He said Gooding failed to capture Simpson’s “charisma" and mannerisms.
“They never consulted, I don’t think, anybody from O.J.’s side to explain that that’s not O.J. It doesn’t even sound like him,” Pardo said. “O.J. Simpson has a charisma about him. He’s a good looking guy. He’s a ladies man."
"He’ll do things that are just whacked out. He’ll sit in the corner and he’ll talk to himself, he’ll answer himself. I’ve caught him doing that numerous times," Pardo added. "He’s like a child. When we handle him, it’s like a child. You’ve got to really watch him, watch his mannerisms."
Goldman’s father, Fred Goldman, told ABC News he has mixed emotions about the mini-series.
"Some parts I was OK with and others not," he said. "I was okay with the rantings of the killer because that's who he is."
Goldman added he was disappointed that the mini-series does not focus more on the two victims: his son, Ron, and Nicole Brown Simpson.
“Their only involvement in this series is as dead bodies in the beginning and that is the extent of the victims in this story,” Goldman told ABC News. “It's a story primarily, as we understand it, about the attorneys.”
“Anybody watching it, especially the generation that never knew of this case at all, I think they have to watch with a clear eye and understand that this is a fictionalized version and not everything is going to be true,” he added.
Pardo said he feels the most for the Simpsons' two children together, daughter Sydney and son Justin; that they have to relive that period in their family's life on TV.
“It’s just sad for the kids. That’s the main thing. They shouldn’t have to go through this all over again,” Pardo said of the now-grown children. “Their mother was butchered and their father is considered a murderer by a lot and they have to relive that for the next two months, over and over and over.
“They can’t even go to the restaurant without it airing so that’s a hard thing for them, and all the other victims.”