photo: Michael Yarish
Somebody involved in the taping of Judith Regan‘s interview with O. J. Simpson for that two-hour special that was supposed to air in conjunction with the publication of If I Did It leaked a transcript of a portion of the conversation to the New York Times—a key portion in which Simpson discusses the two murders in detail.
“At one point during the interview, Mr. Simpson says: ‘As things got heated, I just remember Nicole fell and hurt herself. And this guy kind of got into a karate thing.’ It was then, he says, that ‘I remember I grabbed the knife.’ Later, asked about whether he had taken off a glove before handling the knife, Mr. Simpson says, ‘You know, I had no conscious memory of doing that, but obviously I must have because they found a glove there.’
So, basically, the story that comes out of his mouth in this transcript isn’t much different than the book ‘excerpts’ Newsweek ran three weeks ago, including the presence of his imaginary friend, Charlie, but NYT reporters Russ Buettner and Edward Wyatt take an interesting new detour, introduced by Simpson attorney Yale Galanter while advancing the usual excuse that his client’s confession in print and on screen was “required by his contract.” Frankly, he lays bare what we all sorta if not explicitly realized about the show from the beginning: “It was entertainment with a purpose, and the purpose was to sell the book.” And pretty damn blatantly, at that; as the reporters describe it, “Asked by Ms. Regan to describe the bloody scene in greater detail, [Simpson] at one point suggests that viewers read the book because he found it too difficult to discuss.”
Yep, it’s official: Judith Regan nearly managed to get Fox to air a two-hour infomercial for one of her books. Not as impressive as if she’d pulled off the original ABC deal, which would have led to Walt Disney Corp. paying to broadcast two hours of News Corp. advertising, but come on: Can you name any other editor in publishing who could’ve pulled either stunt off?