O.J. Simpson apparently sees a little bit of himself in Will Smith after his Oscars slap -- saying that he, too, wanted to put hands on people back when he was in the spotlight.
The Juice sounded off on the whole saga, and his main takeaway is in his Twitter caption ... "He was wrong but I understand the sentiment." In the video, he elaborates ... explaining, yeah, Will was wrong -- but he kinda sympathizes with him.
Check it out ... O.J. says he's also been through a lot of "crap," and on the other side of that -- presumably in reference to his acquittal in the '90s -- was often the butt of tons of jokes.