O.J Simpson Refutes Published Report About What Was In Aborted Murder Book
Posted January 15, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
It was a book you’ll never read from an author most people hate.
But at least one prominent magazine claims to have seen the pivotal chapter in the pulled O.J. Simpson tome “If I Did It”.
The supposedly fictional book purported to tell the story of what the ex-football star believed ‘might have happened’ to his ex-wife and her friend Ronald Goldman the night they were murdered in 1994 and pondered what could have occurred if he’d done the killing.
Simpson stood trial for the murders but was found not guilty. Many didn’t agree with the verdict and he was later ruled liable in a civil trial, where the burden of proof isn’t as great.
Now Newsweek has published a story paraphrasing the key chapter, called “The Night In Question.” It claims to have received the telling pages from an anonymous source.
The magazine says the story outlines how an angry Simpson became enraged with his wife during their daughter’s dance recital and then went to her home that night armed with a knife to “scare her.”
The story adds that when he saw Goldman there, he believed the two were planning a sexual encounter because the family dog seemed to accept him as a friend. Goldman was actually at the home to return a pair of glasses accidentally left at the restaurant where he worked.
The chapter supposedly then relates how Nicole rushed at her estranged husband and fell, hitting her head on the ground. When Goldman took up a ‘karate stance’, Simpson went berserk.
“Something went horribly wrong, and I know what happened, but I can’t tell you exactly how,” Newsweek quotes the accused as writing. There are no descriptions of the actual murders, but Simpson is described as finding himself drenched in blood and holding a blood-soaked knife when he ‘came to.’
The would-be co-author won’t say much about the magazine’s report, expect to remind that his aborted book was a work of fiction and that much of it was penned by a ghost writer.
“I’m saying it’s a fictional creation,” Simpson insists. “It has so many (factual) holes in it that anybody who knew anything about it would know that I didn’t write it.”
He claims he can’t remember the specific details of what was written, having “shredded it from my memory.”
Lawrence Schiller, who has penned his own book about the case, agrees with his subject on one thing – the description in the magazine appears to be filled with inaccuracies, including a reference to a broken back gate lock.
In fact, it was the front gate that was in disrepair.
The former gridiron great adds he didn’t even want to put anything about the actual murders into the novel, fearing it would upset his children. But that the publishers insisted it was the only way it would sell.
The book was supposed to be published November 30 th, but after an unprecedented protest, was pulled from the stores even before it reached the shelves. An accompanying TV special also cancelled.
Simpson claims he only agreed to do it because he was desperate for money.
“Was it tacky?” he asks. “Yes, it was tacky … I knew going in it would be what it would be. It was worth it. I made a decision that it would benefit my family and my life. I don’t have any regrets.”
The money from the advance on the cancelled book, which according to the courts was supposed to go the families of the victims, never reached them. In past interviews Simpson simply shrugged off the order, by saying “I spent it.”
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