When, not if, O.J. project will resurface

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By The Associated Press | Tuesday, November 21, 2006 11:21 PM CST | () comments

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.

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.