TV network pulls OJ's murder 'special'

Published on Tuesday 21 November 2006 01:40

OJ SIMPSON'S highly controversial book and TV special featuring a hypothetical first-person account of the murders of his ex-wife and her friend were cancelled last night.

The news came after a growing backlash against the projects - known as If I Did It - in which the former football star had been due to discuss how he would have killed Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman if he had been responsible for their murders.

Relatives of the pair had been furious about the plans, and a dozen affiliates of the network Fox, which had been set to air the interview over two nights, said they would not show them.

Rupert Murdoch, whose News Corporation owns both Fox and the publisher HarperCollins, said the television show and the book had been dropped, and apologised to the victims' families.

"I and senior management agree with the American public that this was an ill- considered project," Mr Murdoch said. "We are sorry for any pain that this has caused the families of Ron Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson."

Under a deal worth a reported $3.5 million (1.8 million), the book had been due to be published next week by ReganBooks, an imprint of HarperCollins, after the interviews aired on 27 and 28 November.

Simpson was acquitted of murder in 1995, but was later found liable for the deaths in a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the Goldman family and has failed to pay the $33.5 million (17.7 million) judgment.

Judith Regan, the publisher of If I Did It, said she considered the book to be Simpson's confession. She refused to say what he had been paid for the book.