Why She Did It

Judith Regan is a giant in the cut-throat world of publishing,
a hard-nosed editor with an unflinching instinct for a bestseller.
So how could she get it so wrong with the OJ Simpson book -
or her audacious attempt at an excuse?

Ed Pilkington reports Wednesday November 22, 2006The Guardian

What on earth was she thinking? What thought process went through her mind that led her to conclude that it was a good idea to invite OJ Simpson to act out the murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown, as if he had done it?

.................

So how could she on this occasion come so astoundingly unstuck?

Well, not a bad starting point is her own explanation. Her statement, issued at the weekend shortly before the project was kyboshed, is big (it runs to 2,216 words), brash and bold. In fact, it must rank among the most audacious self-defences of all time.

The statement is headed "Why I Did It" and begins with an account of the domestic violence she suffered at the hands of her first husband, a psychiatrist whom she does not name. "That man was tall, dark, and handsome. A great athlete. A brilliant mind ... He charmed me. We had a child. And then he knocked me out, with a blow to my head, and sent me to the hospital."

So the OJ Simpson ruse was her attempt to rectify the injustice of his acquittal in 1995, on her own behalf and on that of other domestic violence victims: "When I sat face to face with the killer, I wanted him to confess, to release us all from the wound of the conviction that was lost on that fall day in October 1995."