In 1995, O.J. Simpson pleaded not responsible to murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her pal Ronald Goldman. He was acquitted by a jury. However somewhat greater than a decade later, he kind of confessed to the crimes.
Mr. Simpson did so in a weird 2007 ebook, titled “If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer,” that was bought for publication by ReganBooks, an imprint of HarperCollins, run by the magnate Judith Regan.
The guardian firm for ReganBooks and HarperCollins was Information Corp, whose chairman, Rupert Murdoch, had been one in every of Ms. Regan’s largest supporters.
Amid a sea of extra genteel publishers, she revealed controversial (and sometimes best-selling) memoirs by authors together with the shock jock Howard Stern, the porn star Jenna Jameson, and the steroid-taking baseball participant Jose Canseco. (Mr. Canseco’s memoir was referred to as “Juiced: Wild Instances, Rampant ’Roids, Smash Hits and How Baseball Bought Large.”)
Throughout negotiations for “If I Did It,” Mr. Simpson agreed to conduct one tv interview with a journalist with the intention to promote the ebook. He would describe, in hypothetical phrases, what might need transpired on the evening of June 12, 1994, when Ms. Brown Simpson and Mr. Goldman had been discovered exterior her residence in West Los Angeles, stabbed to loss of life.
Mr. Simpson completed “If I Did It” with the assistance of a ghostwriter, however after a public outcry, the ebook was shelved, and the girl who had agreed to publish it misplaced her job.
“Mainly, I obtained the shiv,” Ms. Regan mentioned in a telephone interview this week.
Ultimately Mr. Goldman’s father, Fred Goldman, and Mr. Goldman’s sister, Kim Goldman, secured the rights to publish the ebook in 2007. They added an introduction, together with a prologue by the ghostwriter, Pablo Fenjves, and an afterward by Dominick Dunne, whose trial reporting for Self-importance Truthful made plain his perception that Mr. Simpson was responsible of the murders.
The Interview
Ms. Regan mentioned she thought that she was being pranked when she first acquired a chilly name from a lawyer claiming to be working for O.J. Simpson, someday round 2005.
When she realized the decision was actual, she labored out a deal. The phrases, Ms. Regan mentioned, included that the cash for the ebook be positioned into trusts for Sydney and Justin Simpson, Mr. Simpson’s kids with Ms. Brown Simpson.
Ms. Regan was adamant that Mr. Simpson comply with an on-camera interview as a result of, as she put it, “with out it, he may at all times say ‘the ghostwriter twisted my phrases,’ ‘this isn’t actually what I mentioned,’ ‘blah blah blah.’”
Ms. Regan then introduced in Mr. Simpson’s ghostwriter, Mr. Fenjves. He had lived a couple of doorways down from Ms. Brown Simpson in Los Angeles and had testified in opposition to Mr. Simpson at trial, saying that he heard a canine barking on the time of the murders.
Over the course of a number of months in 2006, Mr. Fenjves interviewed Mr. Simpson many instances by himself. (“I by no means even met him then,” Ms. Regan mentioned of Mr. Simpson.)
By late 2006, the ebook was full. Barbara Walters of ABC secured an unique interview with Mr. Simpson in Miami, the place he was dwelling. A date to movie was set for early November. However the outcry previous the ebook’s launch threw issues into disarray.
Unsurprisingly, many individuals felt that Mr. Simpson mustn’t revenue from taking heart stage in a double murder, regardless that he had been acquitted. Ms. Walters and ABC backed out of the mission.
Initially, Ms. Regan’s superiors at Information Corp held robust of their help. Fox, its principal tv arm, secured the rights to the interview. Ms. Regan stepped in to interrogate Mr. Simpson herself.
Quickly, she was filming in a warehouse in South Florida.
For 5 hours, she and Mr. Simpson mentioned the circumstances that led to the murders and what occurred of their aftermath. “In the event you pay attention, he hangs himself on each phrase,” Ms. Regan informed the Instances. “His fundamental view was that she had it coming. He noticed himself as a sufferer.”
Wearing a navy go well with and a child blue polo shirt, Mr. Simpson introduced himself as a happy-go-lucky man pushed to the brink by his fickle and temperamental partner.
“Preserve this in thoughts — that is hypothetical,” he mentioned.
Then he mentioned the circumstances that led to the murders.
He mentioned that on June 12, 1994, he had gone to their daughter Sydney’s dance efficiency. Ms. Brown Simpson was additionally there, carrying a brief skirt he didn’t approve of.
On the recital, Mr. Simpson mentioned, he bumped into an previous pal who knowledgeable him that Ms. Brown Simpson had been having drug- and sex-fueled events at her home. Mr. Simpson turned enraged, he mentioned, totally on behalf of his kids.
Later that night, Mr. Simpson mentioned, he went over to Ms. Brown Simpson’s home as a result of he needed to speak it out together with her. He felt {that a} “cease” needed to be put to her dangerous conduct.
Mr. Simpson additionally informed Ms. Regan that there had been a knife within the automotive he drove to Ms. Brown Simpson’s condominium on Bundy Drive in Brentwood. It was hidden beneath his automotive seat, he mentioned.
He mentioned that issues had escalated between him and the victims till he was standing in a pool of blood. But, he professed to not bear in mind a lot of what transpired. And Mr. Simpson introduced himself as having not been alone.
As a substitute, he mentioned that he had arrived at Ms. Brown Simpson’s condominium with a pal named Charlie, and that at one level “Charlie” held the knife, however that it in the end wound up in his hand.
This was a shock. There had by no means been any proof to recommend that Mr. Simpson had an confederate. Nobody else’s blood was discovered on the scene apart from Mr. Simpson’s and the victims’.
Mr. Fenjves later mentioned that he believed “Charlie” was a chimera, a way for Mr. Simpson to provide himself an added degree of take away from the murders he principally acknowledged having dedicated.
Talking by telephone, Ms. Regan mentioned she nonetheless didn’t know what to make of the character within the ebook.
However different particulars that Mr. Simpson talked about line up with the narrative laid out by prosecutors within the homicide trial.
Mr. Simpson mentioned that after leaving the crime scene, he returned residence. He needed to catch a red-eye flight to Chicago as a result of he was scheduled to play in a star golf event the subsequent day.
Within the rush to depart the home and make his flight, he left behind a path of proof that investigators discovered, together with a bloody glove that had been worn throughout the murders.
But, Mr. Simpson spoke throughout the interview with Ms. Regan as if the murders may have been prevented, had Ms. Brown Simpson solely been a extra secure particular person, a greater partner, a extra accountable mom.
“He had zero regret,” Ms. Regan mentioned. “The one regret he had was that she had ruined his life. As a result of he needed to kill her.”
Ms. Regan mentioned that she had walked out of the interview with Mr. Simpson feeling as if somebody had lastly gotten the reality out of him. However quickly after, when advertisements for the interview started to run, various Fox associates revolted. They mentioned they’d not air it.
Vocal condemnations got here from the households of the victims as properly.
Finally, Fox determined to not air it and Information Corp scrapped plans to publish the ebook.
Ms. Regan mentioned publicly that she thought her firm was making a mistake. Lower than a month later, she was fired, reportedly for telling a colleague {that a} Jewish cabal at Information Corp was out to get her.
Ms. Regan denied saying any such factor. She sued the corporate for defamation and it settled together with her for an undisclosed sum. The corporate additionally launched an announcement saying she had by no means made antisemitic statements and was not an antisemite. (Ms. Regan now runs Regan Arts, a publishing firm with distribution via Simon & Schuster.)
By then, Mr. Simpson owed the Goldman household thousands and thousands of {dollars} from a 1997 civil go well with that discovered him answerable for the deaths of Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman. After Mr. Simpson didn’t make his funds, Ron Goldman’s father, Fred Goldman, obtained management of the ebook from a chapter courtroom in Miami.
In 2007, it was launched via Beaufort Books, an unbiased publishing home based mostly in New York. This time, the cash went to the Goldman household. (The earnings from the ebook had been nearly the one cash that the household ever earned from Mr. Simpson, Folks journal reported this week.)
When representatives for Fox referred to as Ms. Regan greater than a decade later to say that they had been going to air the interview, she was stunned. She mentioned this week that she had been led to consider the tapes of the interview had been destroyed.
Clearly, that they had not.
As well as, the producers requested Ms. Regan if she can be prepared to seem on a panel moderated by the journalist Soledad O’Brien and that includes (amongst others) Christopher Darden, a member of the prosecution staff.
Regardless of how Ms. Regan feels about Information Corp’s management, she was pleased to take action.
“Prefer it or not, this was his confession,” she mentioned. “It’s a portrait of a sociopath.”
