OJ Simpson to star in killer Sweeps specials for Fox

When the tabloids reported a couple of weeks ago that OJ Simpson was getting $3.5 million to put his name to a book called If I Did it, Here's How It Happened, many people shrugged off the notion as being too distasteful and outrageous to be anything more than fabrication from the National Enquirer. Ah, but they forgot about Rupert Murdoch! As it turns out, the book, in which Simpson supposedly describes how he might have gone about slaughtering his ex-wife Nicole and her friend Ron Goldman back in 1994-- if he did it-- is the real thing, and it's about to turn into a two-night sweeps special on Fox.

One night for each victim?

The book is being published by none other than Murdoch's editrix Judith Regan, who has her own division within his Harper Collins publishing company, and has starred in more than one failed Fox television project.

The lady described as the "angriest woman in the media" will now costar with OJ Simpson in what should be the most notorious of Fox programming gambit since they had Maury Povich host Michael Jackson's rebuttal to the damning ABC Primetime exposé-- or at least since they aired When Good Pets Go Bad 2.

Fox calls the interview "wide-ranging and no-holds-barred." But don't count on that. The special airs Monday, Nov. 27 at 9 p.m, then skips Tuesday night-- why pre-empt an episode of House when it could be as gruesome as Simpson's "imagination"?-- and concludes Wednesday, Nov. 29. Then, the book goes on sale November 30. How's that for synergy?

Regan left New York City and set up shop in Los Angeles last year. It was shortly after she received national attention when former NYPD commissioner Bernard Kerik withdrew his acceptance as Secretary of Homeland Security, amid allegations that he and Regan had carried on an extramarital affair in a lower Manhattan apartment reserved for World Trade Center cleanup workers. Simpson, as you may know, was acquitted of the murders (read a definitive account of the crime and trial in Tabloid Baby), but later was found "responsible" for both in a civil suit. He was ordered to pay $33.5 million in restitution to the families of the victims. The families say he hasn't paid anyone a penny. Don't expect them to get any of the money Fox forks over.