HarperCollins fires publisher
NEW YORK – Judith Regan, the powerful and often outrageous publisher who cooked up the recent aborted O.J. Simpson book and TV deal, was fired Friday night by HarperCollins, the publishing company that owned Regan’s imprint.
In a terse, two-sentence statement that did not explain the reasons for the termination, Jane Friedman, president and CEO of HarperCollins, said that Regan’s personal imprint, ReganBooks, would continue to be a part of the parent company. Regan had recently moved most of her employees from their New York office to new headquarters in Los Angeles, and it was not clear what their future with the New York-based publishing firm will be.
Spokespersons for Regan and Friedman did not return phone calls Friday night.
The firing ended a flamboyant 12-year run in which Regan, 53, built her own publishing and TV empire within NewsCorp., an international media giant run by Rupert Murdoch that also includes 20th Century Fox, the Fox News channel, the New York Post and television stations across the nation. Regan, known for her brash style and cagey business instincts, helped generate a stream of best-selling books, ranging from highly praised authors such as Wally Lamb and Jess Walter – a Spokane novelist who was recently nominated for the National Book Award in fiction – to U.S. General Tommy Franks, former baseball star Jose Canseco and porn star Jenna Jameson, whose raunchy “How to Make Love Like a Porn Star” became a national best-seller.
Walter said he was “flabbergasted” by her firing.
“The Judith I knew was nothing like the tabloid headlines,” said Walter. “Judith has always been a good friend and one of the few people who never lied to me. Having dealt with publishing and Hollywood, I can’t say that about everyone.”
Regan was also beginning to branch into television with the reality show “Growing up Gotti.”
She is also known for having practically invented the right-wing “rant book,” giving Rush Limbaugh his first best-seller. But she also published works by left-wing activist Michael Moore. And until the Simpson debacle, she had seemed to be the darling of Murdoch’s media world, generating one successful project after another.
But her winning streak ended loudly and publicly when she reportedly paid Simpson $3.5 million for a book and Fox television deal. The book, “If I Did It,” was billed as a hypothetical account of how he might have carried out the murders of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ronald L. Goldman. Regan was to have interviewed Simpson for two hours in a Fox network special. Facing a torrent of protest over the project, Regan issued an emotional, disjointed, eight-page statement defending her decision to promote the venture. She wrote that she felt a kinship with Nicole Brown Simpson because Regan said she herself had been a victim of domestic violence.
Murdoch announced on Nov. 21 that he and other News Corp. officials had decided to terminate the project because of growing public disgust over its content.