Aaron Hernandez’s Rise and Tragic Fall Explored in Chilling American Sports Story Trailer

Aaron Hernandez’s story is about to play out on screen. 

The new trailer for FX’s American Sports Story: Aaron Hernandez has been revealed. The 10-episode docuseries, which premieres Sept. 17, will follow the former NFL player through his career, his shocking murder conviction of Odin Lloyd, and 2017 death. 

In the teaser released Aug. 14, Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes actor Josh Andrés Rivera portrays Aaron through a supercut of clips, balancing his growing public persona as a tight end for the New England Patriots and his life behind closed doors, where he struggled with dark thoughts and behavior. 

“You don’t know what kind of thoughts I have,” Josh narrates as Aaron in the trailer. “It’s like a demon. What if God made me this way?” 

Aaron, who played for the Patriots from 2010 to 2012, was arrested during the offseason of the NFL in 2013, and later found guilty of the murder of Odin in 2015 (He was immediately released by the Patriots following his 2013 arrest). Odin and Aaron had met through their partners, as Aaron’s then-fiancée Shayanna Jenkins-Hernandez and Odin’s girlfriend Shaneah Jenkins were sisters, and the men were friends leading up to the murder. 

After Aaron was charged for the murder of Odin, he was later charged with a double homicide, and faced a 2017 trial. He was acquitted of the crimes, but days later, Aaron died by suicide in jail. 

American Sports Story—which will also star Patrick Schwarzenegger and Jaylen Barron—isn’t the first time a series has investigated Aarons’ life. In fact, Shayanna—who shares her eldest daughter Avielle, 11, with Aaron—had previously spoken out about Netflix’s Killer Inside: The Mind of Aaron Hernandez on social media in 2020. 

“I wanted to let all of you sweet sweet souls know I have tried to read every message sent on IG and through email (positive and negative),” she wrote on social media shortly after the Netflix series was released. “The amount of support and positive energy is again unreal!”

And Shayanna—who is also mom to daughter Giselle—continues to stand by her late partner. In May, she pushed back on a joke made about his death during Tom Brady’s Netflix roast. 

As she told TMZ, "It's sad that I'm trying to raise my children in such a cruel world."