O.J. Simpson's Longtime Lawyer Reacts to 'SNL 50' Murder Joke

O.J. Simpson has long been a popular topic of discussion on Saturday Night Live, and the show’s 50th anniversary special was no different.

Former SNL writer John Mulaney delivered a joke about the late football star in an appearance during Steve Martin’s monologue on Sunday, February 16. Mulaney, 42, used his time to weigh in on the legal track record of the shows’ hosts since SNL premiered in 1975.

“894 people have hosted Saturday Night Live, and it amazes me that only two of them have committed murder,” he said, referring to Simpson and Robert Blake.

Simpson, who died in 2024, hosted an episode of SNL in 1978 during the show’s third season. Blake, who died in 2023, hosted in 1982.

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Malcolm LaVergne, Simpson’s longtime attorney and the executor of his estate, told TMZ that he thought Martin and Mulaney’s monologue was “great” and that Mulaney’s joke was “very funny.” He added that Mulaney’s delivery forced viewers to think for a second about the two former hosts, leading to laughter.

Simpson was found not guilty in his infamous criminal trial for the murders of Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman. He was later found liable for their deaths in a civil suit.

Blake was arrested in April 2002 for murdering his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, but was also acquitted. Similar to Simpson’s case, he was later found liable for her death in a civil suit.

“He knew his place in society and didn’t fight against it, good or bad,” LaVergne said of Simpson. “He just lived his life: golf, friends (rich ones or Joe Blue Collar), good food and hot young women. And then it was over. The end.”

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The attorney said that if Simpson were alive to watch the special, he would have been “indifferent” about the joke. He added that viewers also shouldn’t forget about Alec Baldwin, who holds the record for most appearances on SNL as a host, having done so 17 times.

But while Simpson and Blake faced murder charges, Baldwin was charged with involuntary manslaughter following the fatal shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of his movie Rust. (Baldwin denied pulling the trigger on the prop gun.)

A judge dismissed the case against Baldwin in 2024, leading LaVergne to joke that anyone who hosts SNL can “get away with homicide.”

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Though LaVergne had a sense of humor about the joke directed at his ex-client, he’s currently embroiled in a legal battle with Simpson’s son, Justin, who is living in his father’s old house. LaVergne is demanding Justin either leave the 2,900-square-foot property or sign it over to him.

“Either Justin writes me a check for what was put down for the property and the increase in the value, the equity of it, which is probably now roughly about a quarter of a million dollars,” LaVergne told the Las Vegas Review-Journal in January, “or he can title the property to me and let me figure out what to do with the property.”