By all accounts, O.J. Simpson’s health was in decline for some years, although he kept the severity of his cancer diagnosis to himself. Owner of Las Vegas’ Grape Street Cafe, Wine Bar & Cellar, John McKibben, said that Simpson wasn’t himself the last time he stopped by. Simpson’s “physical well-being was not the norm,” People quotes McKibben. Come early March, Simpson walked with a cane and kept his typical drinking, eating, and chatting to a minimum. McKibben, like others, knew nothing about Simpson’s diagnosis. “He could have had it for a year,” he says on People, “I have no idea.”
In other words, whether out of a sense of pride, privacy, or something else, Simpson wasn’t very open about his physical well-being, his symptoms, his state of mind, and so forth. It stands to reason that if he started canceling appointments towards the end of his life, as he did with friend and colleague Bruce Fromong, he must have been pushed to the limits. Fromong didn’t know about Simpson’s diagnosis, either, but he knew that Simpson’s understated, “Let me get to feeling better” meant that Simpson was feeling far worse than he’d let on. And yet, Fromong just thought that Simpson had the flu or something. “We thought he was getting better, and he was not,” Page Six quotes Fromong. Fromong even said that the last time he saw Simpson at the Aliante Golf Club some months earlier he appeared totally fine.
