The return of If I Did It
According to Reuters, a judge has ordered that the rights to O.J. Simpson’s notorious – but still-unpublished – pseudo-confession If I Did It are to be sold at auction in order to help the Goldman family recoup more of the monies Simpson owes them for their civil settlement. This means, of course, that the book may yet be published.
The ruling comes four months after Simpson’s book about how he could have committed the 1994 murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ron Goldman, was scrubbed by News Corp. media tycoon Rupert Murdoch.
[Goldman’s lawyer David] Cook said Goldman did not necessarily want the book published but had determined that the rights to If I Did It were one of Simpson’s few “visible assets.” The auction could be held within 30 days, Cook said.
Because the book was such a public relations disaster for HarperCollins, it’s hard to imagine any other major publisher wanting to take it on. Then again, now that the act of releasing the book has been repositioned as a charitable gesture toward the Goldmans, maybe publishing it won’t look so unsavory anymore. And furthermore, any company that chooses to step in now will be able to claim, with total honesty, that at least it didn’t originate the book…
