According to reports today, the Fox network will run an interview with O.J. Simpson at the end of November in which he will provide details of the murders of his ex-wife and Ron Goldman.
You would think this would be a bit awkward for someone who has always said he wasn’t there at the time. But according to Fox and Judith Regan, a book publisher who is (coincidentally) releasing a book by O.J. on November 30, Simpson will "hypothetically describe" in the book and interview how he would have committed the murders if he had actually committed the murders that he didn’t in fact commit.
The working title for the book was given as "If I Did It, Here’s How It Happened."
I don’t often feel the need to point out what I am and am not making up, but I’m not making that up.
Simpson of course can’t be tried again for the hypothetical murders, and he has already been found liable in a civil lawsuit by the victims’ families. So he wouldn’t seem to have anything else to worry about at this point if he had actually committed these murders. But he didn’t. Hey, what part of "if" don’t you understand? It’s right there in the title. Which is why everybody should not be making such a big deal out of this interchange, reportedly from the upcoming interview:
INTERVIEWER [reading from the new book]: You wrote, "I have never seen so much blood in my life."
O.J. SIMPSON: "I don’t think any two people could be murdered without everybody being covered in blood."
Sure, maybe it would have been more accurate to write, "If I had been anywhere near the scene of the crime, I would never at that point in my life have seen so much blood," but the conditional tense can be so awkward. That’s why you just put the "if" in the title, so it doesn’t need to be in every single sentence in the book. If you don’t get that, I guess you’re not a professional killer, I mean writer.
Fox executives would not comment about the show or interview but did seem to confirm that it would take place. An executive VP said in a written statement, "This is an interview that no one thought would ever happen." I can’t argue with that. I certainly never saw it coming. "It’s the definitive last chapter," he continued, "in the trial of the [previous] century." That, I doubt.
Next on the list for Fox and Regan Books: a tell-all by Elvis Presley entitled, "If I’m Alive, Here’s Where I’ve Been Living."
Link: Reuters.com
Link: AP via Chicago Tribune