What is the unseen ‘Juiced’ footage in ‘O.J. Unseen: Exploitation of Evil’? Here’s what you need to know
20 ago, O.J. Simpson attempted a comeback with a hidden-camera prank show. It never aired. Now the footage, meant to be buried, is coming to the surface. Investigation Discovery’s four-part documentary event, ‘O.J. Unseen: Exploitation of Evil,’ takes a look back at ‘Juiced,’ a 2006 hour-long special that thrust Simpson onto the stage as the prankster-in-chief. The show was directly inspired by Ashton Kutcher’s original ‘Punk’d,’ and even adopted Simpson’s own catchphrase “You’ve been Juiced!” Biography reports it took 20 participants to shoot in Las Vegas for two weeks, but rather than being released on cable, it was released to pay-per-view and then DVD by producer Rick Mahr’s Xtreme DVD label. According to Nielsen data quoted in This American Life, the DVD registered fewer than 100 sales.
The new documentary, directed by Rebecca Halpern, uses over 100 hours of unseen footage. In an interview with Us Weekly, Halpern said the footage shows a different side of OJ than what people saw. “Viewers are going to watch this and see a different side of O.J. than they’ve ever seen before.” Halpern added, “He’s going to make confessions. He’s going to say things that are going to blow people’s minds.” She further said, “And when you see him in the context of some of these sketches, it’s really remarkable that any decent, normal, nice, kind human being would ever put themselves in that kind of a circumstance after having been accused of the things he was accused of.”
Some of that unseen footage shows Simpson talking to the camera as he discusses the murders of his former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron Goldman. In the trailer, Simpson is heard saying, “We shouldn’t be discussing this on camera. You motherf—--s, be prepared. I know exactly who did it.” Entertainment Weekly has reported that part of the show’s design was aimed at getting Simpson to confess on camera. The pranks included Simpson posing as Elvis Presley and a host of a bingo hall, as well as a scene in which he attempted to sell a white Ford Bronco at a used car dealership, a clear reference to his 1994 low-speed chase. Actor Harmon Leon, who took up the role of Simpson’s sidekick after answering a Craigslist ad, told VICE that producers told him right from the start, “You know, Harmon, we really can’t mention… the murders.” Later, Luc Nicknair, the cinematographer, said that the crew was divided on working with Simpson at all.
But why did ‘Juiced’ fail before it was even released? According to Halpern, a member of the crew leaked the project to the press because they felt it would not have been appropriate enough to be publicly released. Halpern told US Weekly, “There was a mole on the crew who leaked the project to the press, and the reason they leaked it was because they felt that it was so inappropriate and irredeemable that it needed to be stopped.” Mahr later admitted that he buried the project on purpose. “We had the blinders on to make one crazy reality TV show. After we did it – and I think we did that – after we did it, there was a part of me that said, what the hell did we just do?” ‘O.J. Unseen: Exploitation of Evil’ will air on ID September 7 and 8, as well as on HBO Max.
