O.J. Simpson’s ‘If I Did It’ Tops Amazon Bestseller Lists Days After His Death

 

The former star athlete and actor died of cancer at age 76, decades after he was acquitted of the murder of his ex-wife

The paperback version of Simpson’s book, co-authored with Pablo Fenjves, holds the top spot for Amazon’s bestseller list for rich and famous biographies, ahead of memoirs by Rebel Wilson and Paris Hilton, respectively.

The audiobook version of “If I Did It” is Amazon’s bestseller in criminology, leading Michael Goldstrom’s “Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst” and Anthony Ray Hinton’s “The Sun Does Shine.”

An audiobook of Vincent Bulgogi’s “Outrage: The Five Reasons Why O.J. Simpson Got Away with Murder”—published in 1996—is seventh on the bestselling criminology list.

KEY BACKGROUND

In 2006, Fox and HarperCollins’ parent company News Corp. announced it would publish a book by Simpson and a ghostwriter detailing how Simpson would have hypothetically killed his ex-wife Nicole Brown and her friend Ron Goldman. The book would have coincided with two hour-long interview specials with Simpson, who was acquitted of their murders in 1995 and later found liable for their deaths in a civil court in 1997. The project was canceled after receiving heavy criticism, including from then-NewsCorp. chairman Rupert Murdoch, who said it was “ill-considered.” A federal bankruptcy judge gave the rights to the book to Goldman’s family in 2007 and it was later published with the subtitle “Confessions of the Killer.” The book details Brown and Simpson’s relationship, their divorce and attempts to get back together, the night of the murders and his interactions with police. In a chapter depicting the night of the murders, Simpson said he hypothetically grabbed a knife and blacked out, adding “I know what happened, but I can’t tell you how.” Brown’s family opposed the book’s publication.

TANGENT

It’s unknown how much of the book Simpson wrote, though his former manager, Norm Pardo, denied he wrote the book. Fenjves claimed Simpson was involved in the writing and had the final say on what was included, saying, “If there are errors in the book, it’s because O.J. didn’t correct them, or worse, he fed them to me.”