In reality, of course, Simpson is a free man, serving a life sentence of golf and autograph shows. Instead of acknowledging his guilt, he brazenly swivel-hipped from pious avowals of innocence to shameless taunts of literal hands-on involvement. ("No one knows this story the way I know it.") And unless the Brown and Goldman families were secretly working as caddies and bartenders, they'd never see a penny of the $3.5 million HarperCollins had shelled out for the book.
In short, it was a tough sell. And yet, apparently too potentially lucrative to ignore. If handled deftly, sensitively, with a certain discretion ...
"You will read, for the first time ever, a bone-chilling account of the night of the murders, in which Simpson pictures himself at the center of the action," a HarperCollins press release gushed with the sort of tastefulness only a professional publicist can muster. In an astonishingly bold move, If I Did It was being marketed as a spine-tingling screamfest, and if the book sold well enough, who knows what other bone-chilling murders Simpson might picture himself at the center of? Maybe he could even give Freddy Krueger a run for his money.
Not surprisingly, a backlash ensued, and Rupert Murdoch suddenly euthanized the whole production. The Fox specials would not air. The book would be pulped and reincarnated as pages in more prestigious HarperCollins titles like Sex, Sex, and More Sex and Confessions of a Recovering Slut. Bill O'Reilly, whose best-selling etiquette guides are also published by HarperCollins, would not have to boycott himself.
Mission accomplished, right?
Well, not exactly. If I Did It may not reach as many people as it would have had News Corp. stayed the course, but it's not going to disappear, either. The Fox specials were taped. Books were printed, and at least some were distributed to bookstores. If I Did It is out there, and these days, if it's out there, it will eventually make its way to YouTube, the Enquirer a million other potential outlets.
Had If I Did It been published as planned, great stacks of the book may very well have been bruising remainder tables by early January and still not moving at $4.98 a pop. Now, it's a forbidden mystery, more intriguing than ever—how graphic does O.J. get, how cruelly, psychopathically bold in his re-enactment of these crimes? No doubt we'll know soon enough. And in the meantime, O.J. is laughing all the way to whatever discreet financial institution HarperCollins courteously sent his check.