The cancellation of OJ Simpson's television interview and book, If I Did It, is the latest dip in the extraordinary roller-coaster career of his would-be publisher, Judith Regan.
Whether News Corp boss Rupert Murdoch will stand by Regan, whom he hired 12 years ago and who has made a great deal of money for his publishing company, is unclear. In a statement he said: "I and senior management agree with the American public that this was an ill-considered project."
If I Did It had a bizarre and offensive premise. Simpson, a former American football star, was continuing to claim, in the face of public disbelief, that he did not murder his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend, Ron Goldman. (He was acquitted in the sensational "Trial of the Century" in 1995.) But if he had intended to kill
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nicholas clee profiles Judith Regan, a publisher unafraid to dish the dirt |
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her, he would not have carried out the crimes in that way, he argued; here - in the book - were the techniques he would have used.
But Judith Regan saw If I Did It as a confession. Typically, she drew on her personal experience to justify her involvement with the book. "I made the decision to publish this book, and to sit face-to-face with the killer, because I wanted him, and the men who broke my heart and your hearts, to tell the truth, to confess their sins, to do penance and to amend their lives."
The father of Regan's son spent time in prison on a drugs charge, and, she alleges, abused her. She later made a disastrous marriage that ended in what Vanity Fair described as "one of the longest, most contentious divorces in New York State history".
These personal traumas have attracted publicity of a kind that is 
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