Jamal Khashoggi is more famous now for his murder by Saudi Arabian and Turkish officials than his work as a journalist.
Yeah, this (OJ’s level of fame) was debated here not that long ago. Your take is pretty much spot on. He was doing movies, commercials, tv guest spots, NFL commentary, etc all
In general, all this stuff is relative and people here take great pride in not knowing about entertainers and pop culture and even sports ball players to some degree.
Maybe not quite as instantly well-known as he was in the 1970s, but he was still working regularly as a host on sports programming, and was still regularly acting in TV shows and movies (most notably the Naked Gun films). So, he was still a very recognizable name.
Edit: yeah, I wound up just repeating what had already been said by several others. 
Wasn’t OJ also under consideration for the “Terminator” at one time or is that a bad joke inspired by, well, you know.
Was Kato Kaelin a celebrity before the OJ trial? The OP specifies a minor celebrity who became more famous for a bad thing without it benefiting their career.
If anything the publicity from the OJ trial made Kato’s career as a celebrity so I don’t think he qualifies for discussion here.
I really don’t understand how someone could be this wrong about anything.
How about Alex Jones? The conspiracies he spread about the Sandy Hook school shooting have gotten him sued and have giving him a lot more publicity among the mainstream media than ever before. Social media sites such as Facebook and YouTube have banned him and his organizations from spreading his conspiratorial BS.
Michael Vick?
Alex Jones was pretty damn popular back during the Bush years when he was seen as being one of the most vocal Anti-Bush critics and was even in a few movies at the time because of it. Alex Jones was a household name way before his Sandy Hook denialism.
Jon-Erik Hexum, a young up-and-coming actor who accidentally killed himself with a blank round from a gun while messing around on set. Fairly tragic as this was 6 episodes into his first major acting break playing the male lead in a series but now he’s basically the trivia item used about actors killed by blank bullets (including of course Brandon Lee)
Just because you haven’t heard of them doesn’t necessarily mean they are minor. I never of Nipsey Hustle before his death but he was nominated for a Grammy and was well known within the rap community. Jussie Smollett was acting since he was like 6, was getting a lot of heat for his work on Empire, was hooked in politically. and was making a name for himself as an activist. He was pretty well known and his star appeared to be rising.
Lori Loughlin’s daughter Olivia Jade was on the rise as a “social influencer” when her mom’s arrest for getting her into college brought her much wider attention. Too bad for her all the attention made her sponsors drop her.
Nobody had thought of the kid who played Goldberg in The Mighty Ducks for years until his shocking mugshot appeared in the news.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/people.com/crime/mighty-ducks-shaun-weiss-arrested-for-drugs-mugshot/amp/
This may be more local but around here Amy Locane became more famous for killing someone with her car than she was on Melrose Place.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.mycentraljersey.com/amp/2880111002
GG Allin? His schtick was to threaten to kill himself onstage at the end of every show, but instead died from a heroin overdose at a buddy’s apartment after a New York nightclub cut the power to his final set. I could not, for the life of me, name a single song he ever recorded. Wiki lists 8 albums and an EP. None of them are on my iTunes.
Gloria (“The Mexican Madonna”) Trevi, Bess Meyerson and Anita Bryant are all better-known for scandals and controversies than for their stage acts.
Felicia ‘Snoop’ Pearson, from TV’s The Wire.
Mikey, when he ate those Pop Rocks and died.
(Oh, that reminds me–Heather O’Rourke.)
Maybe in some households, but I’d never heard of him.
At the time, nobody ever heard of Virginia Rappe. She was just a minor starlet with a only a handful of roles, usually uncredited. Her death, and the accusations that major star Fatty Arbuckle caused it, made her a household word at the time, and film historians still discuss her.
Probably several actresses who got caught having an affair with a prominent married man come to mind. Donna Rice was a very minor celebrity before the Gary Hart scandal. Elizabeth Gracen was fairly well known for the Highlander TV series, but many people know about her from the Bill Clinton affair instead. Christine Keeler was a minor model and girl-about-town in London before the Profumo affair. I’m sure there are several more.
There’s also the Paris Hilton sex tapes, but those probably helped her career. Same with the Stormy Daniels/Trump scandal. Conversely, the Trump/Billy Bush “grab 'em by the pussy” scandal got Bush international name recognition at the expense of his career.
If I personally haven’t heard of someone, that doesn’t mean much, because I’m not very plugged in to popular culture. But if most people on this board haven’t heard of someone, yeah, that pretty much does mean that they’re a minor celebrity. Of course the ardent aficionados of whatever field someone is in will have heard of them, but a lot of times, such a person that the aficionados have head of does or is involved in something bad, and then suddenly everyone hears of them.
No one has mentioned Traci Lords yet?