O.J. Simpson Used to Complain About ‘Saturday Night Live’ Jokes at His Expense Every Week

O.J. Simpson was the butt of many Saturday Night Live jokes over the years — and, according to former comedy writer Jim Downey, the disgraced football star was not happy about it.

“O.J. used to call up Don Ohlmeyer, who was the head of programming at the network, every Sunday after ‘[Weekend] Update,’ to do the, ‘What the hell, Don? I thought you ran this network,'” Downey, 74, revealed during a panel discussion at the Tribeca Film Festival on Saturday, June 6,per Entertainment Weekly. “And that would get communicated back to [creator] Lorne Michaels.”

In the years that followed the 1995 murders of Simpson’s ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman, the former Buffalo Bills star was continuously referred to as a “murderer” during the “Weekend Update” segment, despite famously being acquitted of the crime.

Downey recalled being pulled aside by Michaels, 81, but claimed the creator never told him to cut the jokes.

“I remember him taking me aside, because he was clearly hearing it,” Downey explained. “He said, ‘What makes you and Norm Macdonald so certain that O.J. is guilty?’ And I just went, ‘Lorne, come [expletive] on.’ And he said, ‘Okay. I think it might be hurting us with our African American audience.'”

“He didn’t tell me not [to] do it, I think he just had to let me know that, ‘You have no idea what I have to go through,'” he added.

Ohlmeyer ultimately fired Downey and Norm Macdonald in 1998, which Downey claimed in a 2014 interview with Vulture was due to his “loyalty” to O.J.