It’s June of 1994. The nation is abuzz with the news that Nicole Brown Simpson has been murdered and that her husband, actor and NFL legend OJ Simpson, is the prime suspect. It’s one of the most shocking news stories in modern times. It’s all anyone can talk about. Except for me. I can’t talk. I’m five months old.
But if I could talk, the secrets I had to share would’ve shocked a nation.
This is my story:
I met OJ during the press tour for “Naked Gun 33/3: The Final Insult” in March of 1994. He had just reprised his role as Detective Nordberg, while I had just made my film debut as Background Newborn 2. We had hit the press junkets pretty hard, OJ and I. It had been more than fifteen years since OJ had started his acting career, and he was trying to rescue it from the brink. It had been more than 15 days since I had been born, and I was trying to figure out where Dad went during peekaboo.
We got along swimmingly at first. Sure, there was the odd outburst that arose from life on the road. He’d get upset at a production assistant for not picking the seeds out of his grapefruit. I’d get upset when I pooped my diaper, or got tired, or had gas, or smelled a bad smell, or saw a shape I didn’t like, or had a thought. But the good times were as good as could be.
Until that fateful day. We were sitting down for an interview, like always. I was tossed the question, “What was it like to be on your first big movie set?” A softball, one I’d fielded dozens of times. Except for some reason, that day, instead of answering the question, I threw up all over myself. Maybe it was something I’d eaten, or maybe my iron nerves were finally failing, or maybe I was a baby. Whatever the case, OJ flipped.
“This fuckin’ baby just threw up everywhere again!” he screamed. “I’m tired of this shit! Why am I even on a press junket with a baby? Where’s Leslie Nielsen? He’s the star of the movie! This baby’s only in one shot, and he can’t talk!”
I was gutted. Everyone had to agree with OJ — having a baby who can’t talk on a press tour for a movie he’s barely in didn’t make much sense. I’d known it all along, of course, but this was my cash cow, and OJ had blown the whole thing sky high. Now my cash cow was gone, off going “moo” somewhere with horses who go “neigh” and pigs that go “oink” and dogs that go “bark” and sometimes “woof.”
OJ stormed off set, and as the producers took off my “Naked Gun”-branded onesie and put me back into my civilian onesie, I vowed to get revenge for the career he’d stolen from me.
Most babies’ first words are “mama” or “dada.” My first words were, “I’m going to frame your ass for murder, OJ Simpson.”
Did I kill Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman? No, of course not. That’s ridiculous. I was a four-month-old. I couldn’t even crawl, let alone walk or stab. And would a cute little face like that do a murder?
Now, did I coordinate with a local mob boss who already had it out for Nicole to recruit the finest hitmen money could buy and use my influences in the LAPD (I was on set for “Beverly Hills Cop III”) to pull off one of the most elaborate frame jobs in modern times that I would’ve gotten away with if I hadn’t lent the killers my infant-sized gloves? I’ve been instructed not to say.
But if I did it, that’s how I would’ve done it.
I visited OJ in prison once, after the Bronco-that-goes-neigh chase. He was glad to see me. “Baby Brian,” he said, “You might be my only friend in the world right now.”
“OJ,” I replied, “I finally got a handle on object permanence. And I can tell I’m not gonna see your ass for a long, long time.”
And I crawled away for good.
I never saw OJ after that. Only on TV and in the occasional Twitter video you see and go, “What the fuck is OJ Simpson doing on Twitter?” I was sad when I heard he’d passed — before we had beef, we’d been close friends.
But I guess that’s life, people drift apart and frame each other for murder every day. OJ went on to live life as a free man, but always living under the cloud of suspected guilt. I went on to become an unknown comedian with an absurdist newsletter that has 59 subscribers.
Who knows what I could’ve been if not for that day on the press junket? I could’ve been one of those Nickelodeon stars who famously had nothing bad happen to them. I could’ve been the toddler in Big Daddy. I could’ve been a goddamned Gerber Baby.
But that’s all in the past. With this confession, I’m letting it go. Giving it to the universe. The Juice, that is to say my guilt, is loose.
Author’s Note
Sorry for not getting the newsletter out on Tuesday this week and that the above nonsense is what you had to wait for.
you were pretty cute for a bad, bad baby