No, Trump did not say that he played football with O.J. Simpson

Context

A screenshot purportedly showing a Truth Social post by former U.S. president Donal Trump is circulating on X (formerly Twitter). In it, Trump appears to say he used to play football with professional football player OJ Simpson. One post sharing the image has gained over a million views and 23,000 likes in 16 hours at the time of writing.  

The post reads, "The great O J Simpson used to play football with me. Not many people know that because I don't like to boast. He could never outrun me, though - have you ever seen blisters on my feet? No blisters. He used to say: 'Sir, you are a great runner, probably the best there has ever been. Also thank you, sir, for playing ball with a black man.' He had tears in his eyes that day."

A screenshot of the fake Truth Social post. (Source: X/Screenshot/Annotated by Logically Facts)

However, the claim is false, and Trump made no such post. 

In fact

The claim originally surfaced following the news of OJ Simpson's death on April 11, 2024. We looked through Trump's Truth Social feed, as well as archived versions of Trump's social media posts on Truth Social in the days following Simpson's death. A keyword search of the text in the claim also yielded no results that show Trump made the post in question.

Reuters has also previously fact-checked the claim and found it to be fake.

Who was OJ Simpson?

O.J. Simpson was an American football player during the 1960s and later became an actor and sports commentator. In 1994, he was charged with the murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ronald Goldman. During the national televised trial in 1995, he was acquitted. In a civil trial in 1996, he was sued for wrongful death by the victims' families; the jury found him responsible for their deaths, and he was ordered to pay $33.5 million in damages. In 2007, he was arrested for armed robbery and kidnapping in Las Vegas and sentenced to nine years in prison with a maximum sentence of 33 years. He died of cancer in 2024.  

Verdict

There is no evidence to support the claim that Trump posted the story about him playing football with OJ Simpson. Therefore, we have marked this claim as fake.