Simpson admits writing book for ‘blood money’

O.J. Simpson said Wednesday that he knew any profit from his “If I Did It” book would be “blood money,” but that he took part in the project to pay his bills.

“It’s all blood money and unfortunately I had to join the jackals,” Simpson told the Associated Press, referring to authors of books about him. “It helped me get out of debt and secure my homestead.”

Simpson also said in telephone interviews this week that he saw the book as a way to provide for his children financially.

The book, said to describe how he hypothetically would have killed former wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman, had been scheduled for release Nov. 30 following the airing of a two-part Simpson interview on Fox next Monday and Wednesday. News Corp., owner of Fox Broadcasting and publisher HarperCollins, canceled the project this week after it was condemned as revolting and exploitive.

In the AP interviews, Simpson denied committing the murders, disputed his own publisher’s contention that the book amounted to a confession, insisted the title was not his idea and said the hypothetical sections were written by his ghostwriter.

News Corp. spokesman Andrew Butcher said the company paid $880,000 to a third party in connection with the project. Of that amount, $100,000 was to go to the book’s ghostwriter and the rest to Simpson’s children, Butcher said.

“Absolutely no money was ever given to O.J. Simpson by us,” he said Wednesday.

Simpson would not say how much he was paid in advance, but said it was less than the $3.5 million that has been reported. He said the money already has been spent, some of it on tax obligations.

Acquitted of the murder charges in 1995, Simpson was later found liable in a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by Goldman’s family. The former football star has not paid the $33.5-million civil judgment, and his NFL pension and Florida home cannot be seized.

He made no apologies for the book and TV deal: “I’ve been pimped for 12 years. Everyone’s made money on me.”

In interviews with the AP, Simpson was bitter toward the Goldmans, who consider him a murderer and continue to try to collect the judgment. “They have become professional victims. America, you’re being duped by these people,” Simpson said.

Goldman attorney Jonathan G. Polak said the family will work to “place Simpson in a ‘virtual’ jail cell, from which he will never emerge. If that means pursuing him until his last day on this Earth, then they are prepared to do precisely that.”

A family statement thanked people for opposing the project, declaring: “No more celebration of evil.”

Prepublication sales for “If I Did It,” were strong but not sensational. It cracked the top 20 of Amazon.com last weekend, but by Monday, when it was canceled, the book had fallen to No. 51.

Simpson, 59, said he deserved harsh criticism for his role in the project, but he complained that News Corp. owner Rupert Murdoch got off easy.

“I’m taking heat and I deserve it,” Simpson said. “But Murdoch should not be taking the high road either.”