Donald Trump wanted OJ Simpson on Celebrity Apprentice despite believing he was guilty of murder

'NBC went totally crazy when I wanted to put OJ on The Apprentice,' says Trump in 2008 interview

The interview remarks come after a wave of past remarks made by Mr Trump that have surfaced in the past week (Getty)

Donald Trump entertained the idea of bringing OJ Simpson onto Celebrity Apprentice as a contestant despite believing he was guilty of murder, it has been revealed.

The Republican presidential candidate told a radio show in 2008 that he had wanted to have Mr Simpson, a former NFL player who was acquitted of killing his wife and her friend in 1997 but later ordered to pay damages for their murder, on his game show - but that the TV channel NBC rejected the idea.

Speaking on the Howard Stern Show in 2008, Mr Trump said : “I do have to tell you about OJ and The Apprentice. NBC went totally crazy when I wanted to put OJ on The Apprentice.”

Mr Trump added that while he was friendly and played golf with Mr Simpson before the murder trial, he abandoned him when he “realised he killed his wife.”

The Republican presidential candidate told Extra in May 2008 that he believed Mr Simpson would be an "interesting" contestant on the show, saying: “Let's say that NBC, when I mentioned OJ Simpson, had a heart attack. They weren't thrilled. I'm not saying I would have cast him, either, but it was certainly somebody that would be interesting.”

Although OJ Simpson was found not guilty by a jury for the double murders in 1994, a civil jury ordered him to pay $33.5 million in punitive and compensatory damages in finding him liable.

In an earlier interview in 2004, Mr Trump described Mr Simpson's murdered wife, Nicole Brown-Simpson, as "rough" and "tough", joking that that was "obviously" why Mr Simpson decided to kill her, before going on to claim that if she were still alive she would be "kissing [his] ass".

The presidenital hopeful was recorded saying: “I'm sitting having dinner and OJ came up to me — I was sitting with very important people, big bankers, nobody that you know, big, big bankers, and we were sitting there, there were six of us, and O.J. came up.

“And he was talking to us for about three minutes, and Nicole, was with her mother I think, and she came over, and she started screaming at him, 'get over to the table, what the hell are you—' she was rough, in all fairness.

“So, he decided obviously to kill her [laughing]. She was very tough. She came over and she really embarrassed him, she was screaming at him. She didn't care.

"And that was before The Apprentice so she didn't give a damn about me. Now she'd be kissing my ass. Now I'm the biggest star on television, she'll kiss my ass.”

The revelations come amid a wave of past remarks made by the Republican candidate that have surfaced in the past week, as well as a string of sexual assault allegations against him.