NEW YORK (AP) -- The O.J. Simpson project is dead, but the
book and the TV interview could turn up in bootleg form in this age
of YouTube and eBay, when scandalous information seldom stays secret
for long.SAVE MONEY ON TRAVEL DEALS
News Corp., owner of Fox Broadcasting and publisher
HarperCollins, called off Simpson's "confession" Monday after
advertisers, booksellers and even Fox personality Bill O'Reilly
branded the project sick and exploitive.
A two-part interview had been scheduled to air Nov. 27 and
Nov. 29 on Fox, with the book, "If I Did It", to follow on Nov. 30.
HarperCollins spokeswoman Erin Crum said some copies had
already been shipped to stores but would be recalled, and all copies
would be destroyed. She would not say how long that would take.
But with the interview already taped, and thousands of books
either sitting in warehouses or headed to booksellers, his
supposedly hypothetical account of how he would have committed the
murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ron
Goldman appears all but certain to surface.
"A book becomes collectible when it's hard to find, and this
will become very, very collectible, surely worth four figures", said
Richard Davies, a spokesman for AbeBooks.com, an online seller that
specializes in used and collectible books.
It's entirely possible that the Simpson TV interview will
get out in some form, said Jeff Jarvis, operator of the BuzzMachine
Web log and a journalism professor at City University of New York.
"All life is on the record now", he said. "Anything you can
do can get out there and get out there quickly."
The Simpson book will also almost certainly remain
underground, with another publisher unlikely to take on "If I Did
It."
Even Michael Viner, whose previous releases include a memoir
by disgraced New York Times reporter Jayson Blair and a tell-all by
four Hollywood call girls, said his Beverly Hills-based Phoenix
Books was not interested.
"It's the public equivalent of doing a snuff film", said
Viner, referring to films that claim to show a person being killed.
"People can make money by doing snuff films, but no one wants to be
associated with it."
The Simpson saga took another twist Tuesday when his former
sister-in-law, Denise Brown, accused News Corp. of trying to buy her
family's silence for millions of dollars.
A News Corp. spokesman confirmed that the company had
conversations with representatives of the Brown and Goldman families
over the past week and said that they were offered all profits from
the book and TV show, but he denied it was hush money.
"There were no strings attached", News Corp. spokesman
Andrew Butcher said.
Denise Brown told NBC's "Today" show that her family's
response was: "Absolutely not."
"They wanted to offer us millions of dollars. Millions of
dollars for, like, 'Oh, I'm sorry' money. But they were still going
to air the show", Brown said. "We just thought, `Oh my god.' What
they're trying to do is trying to keep us quiet, trying to make this
like hush money, trying to go around the civil verdict, giving us
this money to keep our mouths shut."
Pre-publication sales for "If I Did It", had been strong but
not exceptional. It cracked the top 20 of Amazon.com last weekend,
but by Monday afternoon, at the time its elimination was announced,
the book had fallen to No. 51.
AP Television Writer David Bauder in New York, and AP
Special Correspondent Linda Deutsch and Associated Press writer Greg
Risling in Los Angeles also contributed to this report.