OJ Simpson Book, 'If I Did It,' a Best-Seller
It couldn’t have been O.J. Simpson’s plan, since he doesn’t get any of the profits. But the former superstar’s arrest earlier this month has helped launch his new book, If I Did It, to the top of the New York Times nonfiction bestseller list.
It is now No. 2, according to Reuters, after its Sept. 14 publication. That was the same day the news broke that Simpson (who was subsequently charged) was being questioned in connection with a Las Vegas casino hotel room robbery, as discussed in earlier ABAJournal.com posts. He is now out on bail in that case.
Simpson claims that his ghostwritten hypothetical account of how he would have killed his former wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, if he had murdered her, is fiction. But the family of Ron Goldman, another victim murdered with Nicole Brown Simpson in 1994, obtained the rights to the book and added a new subtitle: Confessions of the Killer, reports Reuters. Simpson was charged with both murders but acquitted at trial in 1995. He was subsequently found liable for damages to the families of both murder victims, however, in a civil wrongful-death action.
Writes the news agency: “The commercial success of the book marks a literary coup for Goldman’s relatives, who originally condemned If I Did It as exploitation but later waged a campaign to seize rights to the book to help satisfy their $33.5 million civil judgment against Simpson.”
As an earlier ABAJournal.com post details, the Goldmans obtained the rights to the book in bankruptcy court.
Nicole Brown Simpson’s family was also included in the civil judgment against O.J. Simpson, as the New York Times reported at the time. But members of her family reportedly did not seek the rights to the book and have said they didn’t want it published, according to the Associated Press.
