"The California man who helped orchestrate O.J. Simpson's memorabilia recovery mission (and then sold an audiotape of the raid to a tabloid web site) is an ex-con whose rap sheet includes at least four separate felony convictions, including arson, prison escape, and stolen property charges, The Smoking Gun has learned...." [TSG]

TMZ + O.J.

We love a conspiracy theory, so we're enjoying Tabloid Baby's musings about TMZ and O.J. Simpson. They seem to think that O.J. Simpson and TMZ, the only Time Warner journalism product that pays sources for material, are collaborating—or at least have reached a state of advanced symbiosis—with O.J.'s recent arrest and the audiotapes TMZ has published of O.J. making threats. They note that in 1994, KCBS TV aired now-TMZ head Harvey Levin's tape of prosecutor Marcia Clark searching Simpson's home without a search warrant—a story that he retracted later. We don't quite see how this all pans out or fits together—but we wouldn't put anything past anyone at this point.

Sting Visits A House Of Ill Repute

So what's the marketing strategy that will help the Goldman family get their dignity's worth out of the publication of O.J.'s If I Did It? "You leave it to the press. It's like blood in the water; the sharks will come. You spend nothing on it. You're catering to the train-wreck crowd," opines Michael Viner, the publisher of Heidi Fleiss's memoir and an Anna Nicole bio entitled Trainwreck. He added, "It's gross exploitation, and the Goldmans are soiling their public image." Now that's like Courtney Love calling you a hopeless drug addict. [AdAge]

O.J. Simpson's Sister-In-Law Not Thrilled About Book Publication

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The Goldmans want TMZ "held in contempt' for posting a full PDF of If I Did It for two hours yesterday. They'll get some money somehow! [TSG]

Remainders: Huge Hubbub In Gay Town

If He Read It: James Wolcott Liveblogs The O.J. Book

Even though Newsweek already excerpted the only chapter that anyone remotely cares about, James Wolcott breathlessly trumpets Vanity Fair's acquisition of "the whole enchilada" — a shiny new hardcover edition of If He Did It — today on VF.com. (Now we know who was bidding on Ebay!) So what's the book (well, the part we haven't all already read) like? Well, Wolcott calls it "a shameless yet ingeniously opaque cockteaser," and, surprise surprise, so is his 'review.' We learn that O.J. and Nicole Brown had a tumultuous marriage, and that Nicole frequently enraged her husband by wearing whorey outfits. Yawn yawn. Ultimately, the only sort of new information here seems to be that James Wolcott is a weirdo who makes up his own nonsensical slang. Simpson's B-list milieu is given to "normo" leisure activities, while Nicole is "for cert" nothing like Gloria Swanson, though the book is (somehow ) like Sunset Boulevard. But our favorite moment of Wolcottian semicoherence comes later, when he's describing the chapter entitled "The Two Nicoles":

As [Simpson] tries to move forward, she's stuck in self-destructive reverse, acting and dressing like a teenager with her twat in a snit and, rumors reach him, hanging with a bad crowd.

Well, we may not care about O.J. or Judith Regan or anything anymore, but we do look forward to using the next time we'll be able to use the "twat in a snit" tag. More »

Six Degrees of O.J. Simpson's Ghostwriter

In a Talk of the Town piece in next week's New Yorker (online now), Jeffrey Toobin talks to the man behind the O.J. Simpson not-confession If I Did It, Pablo Fenjves, who got to know Judith Regan when they were colleagues at the National Enquirer in the 1970s. (He wrote "human-interest" stories for the paper.) More »

Andrea Peyser Demands OJ Closure

Bless her little heart, that thoughtful Andrea Peyser is standing up for our right to finally find out who killed Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman. "Almost alone," with only the backing of a major media conglomerate behind her, Andrea had defended "media punching bag" Judith Regan from the slings and arrows of her unjust attackers, who were obvs driven by "petty jealousy." But alas, her efforts have come to naught! The show and book have been shelved, and now we won't ever have any idea who committed those murders. More »

Fox Anticipates Huge Ratings For Upcoming Reality Special, 'When (And If) Former Heisman Trophy Winners (Were To) Attack'

Realizing that golf club memberships and real-murderer-trailing private investigator fees don't pay for themselves, free-moving sociopath O.J. Simpson has teamed with publisher Judith Regan for a book and accompanying two-part Fox reality special, tantalizingly titled, O.J. Simpson: If I Did It, Here's How It Happened.
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Gossip Roundup: Why Do You Have to Go and Make Things So Complicated?

LA gossip columnist tip source: the LAPD

An LAPD officer used police computers to sell celebrity data to tabloids. Among the records accessed were those of Sharon Stone, Sean Penn, Meg Ryan, Kobe Bryant, O.J. Simpson, Larry King, Drew Barrymore, Cindy Crawford, and Halle Berry. The offers says he accessed the records because he was ordered by his superiors to compile map of VIP residences in LA. (Hey, NYPD: you guys are holding out on us! Where are all of our celebrity addresses?) More »