Getty ImagesCopyright: Getty ImagesOJ Simpson sits with sports broadcastersImage caption: OJ Simpson sits with sports broadcasters

It's unclear when - or if - OJ Simpson said the now famous phrase "I'm not black, I'm OJ".

It was first noted that he said something to that effect to his lawyer Johnnie Cochran during a conversation around the time of his double-murder trial.

Then, in 1994, Simpson expressed a similar sentiment in a New York Times interview.

"My biggest accomplishment is that people look at me like a man first, not a black man," Simpson said.

In 2016, Cuba Gooding Jr said the "I'm not black" line in the documentary The People V OJ Simpson during a re-enactment of the conversation with Cochran.

Jay-Z popularised the line even further in 2017 in his Billboard chart-topping song The Story of OJ.

Jay-Z wrote: "OJ like, 'I'm not black, I'm OJ' ... okay."

In 2023, Simpson cleared the air in an interview, telling fashion designer Augustus Lymon that Jay-Z "didn't say it right".

"When Johnnie [Cochran] was talking to me about it, and all that was going on was 'black, black, black,' I said, 'Man, [expletive] being black. This is me. This is about OJ,' you know?"