Justin Ryan Simpson: The Private Life of O.J. Simpson’s Youngest Son

Justin Ryan Simpson is the youngest child of the late football star and actor O.J. Simpson and his second wife, Nicole Brown Simpson. He was a small child when his family became the center of one of the most followed news stories in American history, and he has spent his adult life doing the opposite of chasing attention.

Today he works in real estate in Florida and lives as a private citizen and a father. Because he gives almost no interviews, the public record about him is short. This article sticks strictly to that documented record: his family, his childhood, his education, and the quiet career he has built for himself.

Quick Facts

His Family and Early Childhood

Justin Ryan Simpson was born on August 6, 1988, in Los Angeles, California. He was the second child of O.J. Simpson and Nicole Brown Simpson, who had married in 1985. His older sister, Sydney Brooke Simpson, was born in 1985. Through his father’s first marriage, to Marguerite Whitley, Justin also has older half siblings, Arnelle and Jason Simpson. A half sister, Aaren, died as a young child in 1979, long before Justin was born.

O.J. Simpson and Nicole Brown Simpson divorced in 1992. On June 12, 1994, Nicole Brown Simpson was killed outside her home in Brentwood, Los Angeles, along with her friend Ron Goldman. Justin was five years old at the time and was asleep inside the house that night, as was his sister. Police officers took the children from the home, and they were placed with family members while events unfolded around them.

What followed was the criminal trial of their father, one of the most widely covered court cases in the world. O.J. Simpson was acquitted in October 1995. A separate civil case in 1997 found him liable for the deaths, a distinction that is part of the public record of the case. For Justin, the legal details mattered less than the simple fact that he grew up without his mother, inside a story that strangers felt they knew.

Growing Up Between Two Families

During the trial period, Justin and Sydney were cared for mainly by their maternal grandparents, Juditha and Louis Brown, Nicole’s parents. After the acquittal, their father regained custody of them in 1996 following a custody dispute with the Brown family. Reports from that period describe a childhood split between two families who were on opposite sides of a painful public case.

In 2000 the children moved with their father to Florida, where O.J. Simpson settled. Away from Los Angeles, the attention slowly became less intense. Justin attended Gulliver Preparatory School in the Miami area. His father, in a 2004 television interview with NBC, spoke warmly about him, calling him the finest kid he had ever known and describing a schoolboy who played lacrosse, basketball, and football and was well liked by classmates.

That Florida move shaped the rest of Justin’s life. Both he and Sydney stayed in the state as adults, built their working lives there, and kept the pattern of privacy they had learned as children.

It is worth understanding how complete that privacy was. While television films, documentaries, and mini series about his father’s case appeared again and again over the years, Justin did not take part in them as an adult commentator. He did not sell his story, and he did not use the famous family name to build a public brand. Friends and family members who have spoken about him describe the same person in the same words: quiet, solid, and focused on his own household. In a family story that has been told in public for three decades, his near silence is the most consistent fact of all, and it appears to be a deliberate and settled choice rather than an accident.

College and a Real Estate Career

Justin studied at Florida State University from 2006 to 2010. His chosen field, listed in profiles based on his own professional pages, was entrepreneurial and small business operations. It was a practical choice, aimed at business rather than sport or entertainment, the two fields attached to his father’s name.

After college he settled in St. Petersburg, on Florida’s Gulf Coast, the same city where his sister Sydney also built a life. Like Sydney, he went into real estate. By 2016 he was working as an agent with Coldwell Banker in the area. He later became associated with property management work in the Tampa Bay area as well.

His single best known interview came in 2016, when renewed interest in his father’s case followed a popular television drama about the trial. Speaking to the Tampa Bay Times about his new home city, Justin kept his words simple and local. “It’s a great place to live, why not St. Pete?” he said. “It’s gorgeous here.” The quote is quoted so often because it is almost the only time he has spoken to the press as an adult, and because it shows what he wanted to talk about: his work and his city, not his family’s past.

A Deliberately Private Adult Life

Justin has no public career in media and keeps a very low profile compared with almost anyone connected to a story of this size. He does not give regular interviews, does not appear on reality television, and has never written a book about his childhood. Profiles written about him over the years are built from a small set of confirmed facts repeated many times, which is itself a sign of how complete his privacy has been.

The clearest recent picture of his life came from someone who knows him. After O.J. Simpson died in April 2024, Justin’s godfather, David Brobeck, spoke to People magazine about Justin and Sydney. Brobeck, whose family the children spent time with during the trial years, said the siblings had received great love and support from their community as children, and that as adults they had found a good life. “They’ve grown up, and they have their own families now, and they’re doing really well,” he said. “They’re solid, solid people and parents.”

On the family side, the public record includes one happy announcement. In February 2022, Justin shared on Instagram that he and his partner were expecting a baby girl, whom they planned to name Lana. He wrote that they were excited, nervous, and in love as they waited for her arrival. Brobeck later described Justin as a married man and a father, and spoke warmly of his wife and their young child.

That is close to the whole of the confirmed public story, and respecting its limits matters. Claims that appear on low quality websites about his money, his homes, or his private views go beyond anything he has said or any reliable outlet has documented, and they are not repeated here.

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FAQs

When was Justin Ryan Simpson born?

He was born on August 6, 1988, in Los Angeles, California. He is the youngest of O.J. Simpson’s five children and the younger of his two children with Nicole Brown Simpson.

What does Justin Ryan Simpson do for a living?

He works in real estate in the St. Petersburg and Tampa Bay area of Florida. He was reported as an agent with Coldwell Banker in 2016 and has also been linked to property management work.

Where did Justin Ryan Simpson go to college?

He attended Florida State University from 2006 to 2010, where his studies focused on entrepreneurial and small business operations.

Does Justin Ryan Simpson have children?

Yes. In February 2022 he publicly announced that he and his partner were expecting a daughter, to be named Lana. His godfather has since described him as a married father.

Final Thoughts

Justin Ryan Simpson’s story is unusual because of what is not in it. Born into a famous family and marked as a small child by a tragedy and a trial the whole world watched, he chose ordinary work, an ordinary city, and a private family life. The documented record is brief, but it points one way: a man who grew up, built a career in Florida real estate, started a family, and kept his life his own.

Featured photo: O.J. Simpson – photo by Erik Drost, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons