Disgraced former football star O.J. Simpson has joined Twitter the same week as the 25th anniversary of his ex-wife’s murder.
Simpson, who was cleared of killing Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman, uses the handle @TheRealOJ32. The handle is in reference to the number he wore when he played for the San Francisco 49ers and the Buffalo Bills.
The 71 year old’s first post appeared late Friday and the account has already garnered more than 171,000 followers.
“Hey Twitter world this is yours truly,” Simpson said in the short video post.
“Coming soon to Twitter you’ll get to read all my thoughts and opinions on just about everything.
“It should be a lot of fun. I got a little getting even to do. So God bless, take care.”
Simpson's televised "trial of the century" became a national obsession in the 1990s, fraught with issues of racism, police misconduct, celebrity and domestic violence.
Represented by a legal "dream team" that included Johnnie Cochran Jr. and F. Lee Bailey, he was acquitted by a jury in 1995 in a verdict that seemed to split the country along racial lines.
The former running back, who lives in Las Vegas, Nev. was convicted of armed robbery and kidnapping in 2008 and sentenced to 33 years in prison.
He was released in 2017 after serving nine years of his sentence.
Reaction to Simpson joining Twitter was mixed, with many users chiming in with puns alluding to the notorious murder case.
“Open twitter, see #OJsimpson is trending, auto-thought what the hell has he done now?” Gem Swanson tweeted.
“’OJ Simpson is now following you’ has got to be top 10 most terrifying notifications one could receive,” Burrito Bandito added.
--- With files from The Associated Press
