Last week, I wrote about an upcoming book and Fox television show called O.J. Simpson: If I Did It, Here?s How It Happened, wherein O.J. Simpson would discuss how one might hypothetically kill two people and get away with it while discussing his search for “the real killers” confess to a brutal double murder while getting off scot-free.
Now, it appears that we won’t be hearing from The Juice after all:
NEW YORK — O.J. Simpson’s book and TV special were canceled Monday, an astonishing end to an imaginary confession that had sickened the public as the very worst kind of tabloid sensation.
“I and senior management agree with the American public that this was an ill-considered project,” said Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corp. owns both Fox Broadcasting and publisher HarperCollins. “We are sorry for any pain that this has caused the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson.”
“If I Did It,” in which Simpson was to have described how he would have killed his ex-wife, had been scheduled to air as a two-part interview Nov. 27 and Nov. 29 on Fox. The book was to have followed 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.
What I still don’t get is why anyone at HarperCollins or Fox thought this might have been a good idea to begin with. Then again, if they’d gone forward, it probably would’ve been a smash:
Sales for “If I Did It,” had been strong, but not sensational. It cracked the top 20 of Amazon.com last weekend, but by Monday afternoon, at the time its cancellation was announced, the book had fallen to No. 51.
