News > O.J. Simpson book dead, but accusations still fly
November 24, 2006
Content taken from TV.com:
A day after News Corp. scuttled an O.J. Simpson book and TV interview about the murder of his ex-wife, her sister accused the company Tuesday of offering her family "hush money" to keep quiet about the controversial project.
News Corp. acknowledged offering proceeds from the aborted book and television special to relatives of Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ronald Goldman, who were stabbed and slashed to death on June 12, 1994.
But contrary to assertions by Simpson's former sister-in-law, Denise Brown, company spokesman Andrew Butcher insisted there were "no strings attached to our offer."
"And there was certainly no suggestion by us that either of the families would be barred from talking about the issue," Butcher told Reuters. "We know that they would never agree to something like that."
Appearing on NBC's Today program, Brown took a more cynical view of News Corp.'s proposition.
"They wanted to offer us millions of dollars, millions of dollars for, like 'Oh, I'm sorry' money. But they were still going to air the show," she said. "We just thought...what they're trying to do is keep us quiet, trying to make this like hush money...giving us this money to keep our mouths shut."
She added that her family had rebuffed News Corp.'s offer. Representatives for Goldman's family could not immediately be reached for comment.
Butcher, who declined to quantify the offer, suggested that News Corp.'s intent was merely an attempt to do the right thing.
'NEVER GOING TO BE HAPPY'
"I don't want to say it was to keep them happy, because they were never going to be happy," he said. "The families had made it clear that they weren't happy with the project. We were looking at ways to help them. Instead we've all agreed to stop the project altogether."
The revelation of News Corp.'s financial overtures to the victims' families was the latest wrinkle in an ill-fated publishing and TV venture that sparked a hail of criticism suggesting News Corp. was seeking to exploit a human tragedy for profit.
In a rare move for the chief executive of an international media conglomerate, News Corp. chairman Rupert Murdoch himself announced Monday that he was pulling the plug on the book and TV interview, in which Simpson offered a hypothetical account of how he would have killed his ex-wife and Goldman.
The former football star and TV pitchman has always maintained his innocence and was acquitted in 1995 of charges he committed the murders.
But a civil court jury in 1997 found him liable for the deaths and awarded the victims' families $33.5 million in damages, which Simpson has vowed never to voluntarily pay. Little of the judgment has ever been collected.
Simpson's new book, titled If I Did It, was originally due to go on sale on November 30, preceded by the two-part Fox network TV interview of Simpson conducted by his publisher, Judith Regan, whose HarperCollins imprint, like Fox, is a unit of News Corp.
In addition to a public outcry over the book and Fox special, News Corp. faced mounting resistance to the project from its TV affiliates and advertisers, while a number of booksellers planned to either boycott the book or donate proceeds to charity.
Despite widespread speculation that the taped interview and manuscript of Simpson's book would ultimately surface elsewhere, Butcher said News Corp. had no intention of making either of them public.
"We've recalled all the copies (of the book) that were shipped to retailers, and we'll be destroying them, and any copies that were printed," he said.
