GOP Flack: ‘Hillary Clinton Is the New O.J. Simpson’As Republicans struggle to keep the “email scandal” alive, former Romney ‘12 communications director Eric Fehrnstrom gets to the bottom of the barrel fast by comparing Hillary Clinton to O.J. Simpson as someone who got away with murder.
A-Poe Is a Smash in HarlemPlus, Bill Clinton and Rachael Ray, together again? And Helen Hunt is reacquainted with Matthew Broderick’s goods!
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Chace Crawford and J.C. Chasez Hang Out With GirlsChace Crawford and J.C. Chasez hung out with girls and drank Cristal at a Vegas party thrown by Michael Strahan. A bunch of Upper East Side housewives at the premiere of The Real Housewives of New York City hated on the show. Because they were jealous. Among the stipulations in Kimora Lee Simmons’s contract rider is that her glass of Champagne must be filled whenever it gets below one inch. Employees at Philippe may have been watching celebs like Tom Brady and Gisele hook up in the restaurant’s private room via security camera. A party in honor of Baird Jones (open bar, naturally) will be held at Plumm this Friday, with a memorial service to be held at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine Saturday afternoon.
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Eli Manning’s Little Town Blues Have Melted AwayEli Manning and Yogi Berra sang “New York, New York” together at Rao’s. Male madam David Forest says Marc Jacobs used to employ his services. Mariah Carey shot a video on the rooftop of Lenny Kravitz’s Crosby Street apartment. Mayor Bloomberg celebrated his 65th birthday with Steven Ratner and others at Michael’s. R.E.M. front man Michel Stipe got into a go-cart accident two weeks ago but is fine now. Blackstone Group co-founder Pete Peterson sold his River House digs to financier Jeffrey Leeds for $10 million.
company town
Rudy Takes a BreatherLAW
• Now that he’s dropped out of the White House race, Rudy Giuliani plans to decompress before he starts lawyering at Bracewell & Giuliani. [Texas Lawyer]
• Oh, snap! Skadden is so not pleased about the hottest-female-associate contest that took place on the Skadden Insider blog. [Law.com]
• Perhaps Covington & Burling should have consulted its client Major League Baseball before agreeing to represent pitcher Roger Clemens. [American Lawyer]
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Breaking: Someone Fancy Went to Mohegan Sun!Vanity Fair style arbiter Amy Fine Collins went to the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut. Central Park carriage owners responded to Pink’s animal-cruelty charges by deriding them as the “ignorant comments of a B-list pop star.” Nets chairman and real-estate developer Bruce Ratner is getting married to plastic surgeon Pamela Lipkin. At Sundance, Paris Hilton gave a lap dance to Jared Leto, David Katzenberg took pictures of his privates for girlfriend Nicky Hilton, Cisco Adler got into a shoving match, Reggie Bush and Kim Kardashian made out, and Adrian Grenier lost his drumsticks. John Legend says he doesn’t get caught up with dating models and that he’s “more concerned with (his) happiness.”
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Padma Leaves a Bad Taste in Fiamma’s MouthManhattan Moms, an East Coast equivalent of Bravo’s The Real Housewives of Orange County, will premiere early next year. A lot of the city’s foremost graffiti artists congregated for a book party at Auto in the meatpacking district. Billy Joel is in talks with the Mets to perform a bunch of gigs at Shea Stadium. George Steinbrenner will have a high school named after him in Tampa. Padma Lakshmi was rude to the staff at Soho eatery Fiamma, but Martha Stewart overtipped and was nice. CNN gave out an award to someone for forcing “one of the world’s largest oil corporations to pay more than $6 billion to clean up toxic waste in the Amazon rain forest,” but didn’t name Chevron as the company because they are an advertiser.
company town
Gucci Would Prefer a More Flattering CutFASHION
• The Gucci family is up in arms over Ridley Scott’s biopic. They fear he’ll focus on the family scandals. You know, instead of making a movie about all the boring stuff. [British Vogue]
• Helmut Lang is opening a pop-up shop in the meatpacking district. Just what we need, another fabulous place to spend our money while we are drunk. [Fashion Informer]
• Kaiser Karl rocked the U.K. with a Chanel fashion show. [WWD]
gossipmonger
Sheryl Crow Finally Has Something to Say About Ashley and Lance
Sheryl Crow thinks it’s “pathetic” that Lance Armstrong is dating Ashley Olsen. Paris Hilton has been frequenting New York hot spots very late at night (or, rather, early in the morning). Donald Trump Jr. is suing the board members of his West Side condo for kicking him off. Jon Corzine’s ex, 48-year-old Carla Katz, is dating a 32-year-old American soldier and former model. Torch, a new club slated to open tonight, is scrambling to get Tiki Barber and 800 other invitees not to show up because the plumbing isn’t ready. A guy on the subway once told Matthew Broderick that he looked and sounded exactly like Matthew Broderick.
in other news
Judith Regan Loves Karaoke, Just Like Us!This morning, the Daily News ran an excerpt from a first-person Harper’s Bazaar article by Judith Regan, in which the former editor announces that she’s going to start staying out of the spotlight. Hidden at the bottom of the News summary was a reference to an evening where Regan, licking her wounds from the bad publicity of her O.J. Simpson If I Did It book debacle, ducks into a karaoke bar in Chinatown and belts out Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.” Of course, we were dying to hear more about this anecdote, and not just because we’re pretty sure we’ve sang that exact song in that exact bar. So we tracked down a pdf of the article to read more:
During the ordeal, my friends stood by me. Blair Sabol made bracelets in support of me. Kate Li, with whom I used to sing in the Vassar Madrigals, traveled to visit me in New York in August. We wandered into a karaoke bar in Chinatown. It was crowded, full of young people who couldn’t sing, and thankfully too noisy to really hear anyone. I’d studied voice as a young woman but always hated performing. For the first time in my life, I didn’t have stage fright. The song we sang was “My Way.”
gossipmonger
Carrie Has to Remarry for ‘Sex and the City’Sex and the City producers have to reshoot the wedding sequence between Carrie Bradshaw and Mr. Big at the New York Public Library because they rushed through it the first time. (Also, Kim Cattrall shows up to work last every day.) ABC contacted Cosmo’s hottest New York Bachelor of 2007, Patrick Clark, about staring in The Bachelor. Bonnie Evans, widow of Charles Evans (brother of producer Bob Evans), is putting up her Park Avenue triplex for sale for $30 million. Josh Hartnett claimed that “half–95%” of what is written about him is not true but declined to say whether his hooking up with Rihanna was included in that figure. The Autumn, the play starring Meryl Streep’s daughter Mamie Gummer, is coming to Broadway. Law & Order: SVU star Richard Belzer spends a lot of time looking for UFOs. Cindy Adams discusses reruns on TV.
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Richard Gere’s Sell-Buy ConundrumRichard Gere may buy the penthouse in Julian Schnabel’s West Village building, if he can sell his Sullivan Street townhouse for $12 million first. Henry Kissinger, Michael Eisner, and Barry Diller were among the power players who ate at Michael’s for lunch yesterday. Some designers are refusing to use the Earth Pledge’s ecofriendly “Sea Leather” because it’s actually made out of dead fish skin. Ivana Trump’s new engagement ring, from daughter Ivanka’s jewelry line, costs $250,000. Anderson Cooper told Conan that he has a “fatty deposit” under his eye that is visible in high definition. NBC refused to run a Larry Craig–inspired political commercial, though CNN picked it up. (Perhaps it had something to do with Matt Lauer’s interview with the disgraced senator?)
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Scores Stripper Not So Sure About Drag De La HoyaThe Scores stripper who had the photos of Oscar De La Hoya in drag is now saying she cannot “personally verify the authenticity of the images,” likely because she was threatened by De La Hoya’s lawyer. Lever House owner and real-estate mogul Abe Rosen is forcing tenants (including art collector Robert Wilson) out of his nine-story building on 67 Vestry Street to turn it into a luxury condo building. Miss USA Rachel Smith says she wants to be taken seriously as a TV reporter and not “end up like Katie Couric.” Donald Trump denied having once punched his second-grade music teacher, despite having written about the story in a book. Bruce Willis and his eight-person entourage were denied entry to Socialista at 3 a.m. Ivanka Trump’s jewelry line predictably does not include diamond grills. Dates with some hot firefighters are being auctioned off for charity at Turtle Bay Lounge tonight.
intel
O.J. Simpson Shows the Goldmans the MoneyHey – did you hear O.J. Simpson got in trouble again? Yeah, apparently some bad mojo went down in Vegas. The whole mess began when Simpson tried to get back some personal memorabilia that had been taken from him and then was accused of armed robbery. Oddly enough, the stuff (a Hall of Fame plaque, a signed photo of Simpson and J. Edgar Hoover, and some signed footballs) was originally removed from his house to keep it away from the family of murder victim Ron Goldman, says the Daily News. The family is owed $38 million by Simpson, and a friend says Simpson’s cohorts were trying to keep the memorabilia from being sold off to help pay the debt. Which is funny, since in trying to get it back, O.J. has inadvertently thrown even more money into the Goldmans’ coffers.
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Is Marc Jacobs Engaged?Marc Jacobs may have given a Cartier engagement ring to his on-again, off-again boyfriend, Jason Preston. Tyra Banks dropped her manager, either because he was a prima donna or because her investment-banker boyfriend told her to. Britney Spears backed out of recording a Timbaland-produced duet with Justin Timberlake. It’s unclear why. No cameras or cars are allowed at the fund-raiser Oprah is throwing for Barack Obama at her California ranch, which is expected to draw George Clooney, Halle Berry, and Jamie Foxx. Harvey Weinstein is offering $100,000 to anyone who can identify the Upper East Side mom who inspired The Nanny Diaries. (Some speculate it’s Preppy Handbook author Lisa Birnbach.) Marc Ecko’s CEO threw $500 in cash around during a company-sponsored booze cruise. Norman Reedus, Helena Christensen’s baby daddy, is making a movie in which Richard Nixon sleeps with a hooker and then kills her. U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki Moon dined at Le Cirque with two tables’ worth of security guards.
in other news
‘Christian’ Bookseller Takes Up O.J.’s CrossAnd the lucky publisher who gets to publish O.J. Simpson’s tell-all book, If I Did It – guaranteed profits! At only the low, low cost of your soul! – has finally been announced. It’s Eric Kampmann of Beaufort Books! Wait, who? Upon a bit of investigation, we discovered that Beaufort is a small, independent house that frequently “guides the publishing process” and “shares in the risk.” In other words, it’s a vanity press where writers put up some of their own money to see their work in print. The Goldmans won’t have to put up any cash for this effort, but according to Publisher’s Weekly, “the manuscript is believed to have gotten a cool response from major houses,” which may be why it found its way to a smaller company. “Eric came forward and he is really a well respected, fine Christian man who totally understands why this book should be published,” the book’s agent, Sharlene Martin told PW. “Obviously, I wanted to find a publisher who could react quickly to the situation and the beauty of a publisher like Beaufort is that the buck stops with Eric Kampmann.” Ooh, maverick Christian bookselling – just what this whole murderous drama needed.
If I Did It Sold to Beaufort’s Eric Kampmann [Publisher’s Weekly]
Beaufort Books [Official Site]
Earlier: O.J.’s Book Set To Drag Us Through the Whole Mess Again, Again
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O.J.’s Book Set to Drag Us Through the Whole Mess Again, AgainIn a discomfiting turn of events, the family of murder victim Ron Goldman has decided to publish O.J. Simpson’s book If I Did It, the fictionalized tell-all from Simpson’s perspective about what happened the night Goldman and Nicole Brown Simpson were killed. We’ve been waiting all day to hear which New York publishing company will reap the benefits, but thus far, no announcement. Last month, the Goldmans were awarded the rights to the book by a federal judge, since they are owed $33.5 million in damages by the former football star. It will be published with “commentary” from the family. The book’s agent is Sharlene Martin, who made a name for herself by repping celebrity tell-alls like You’ll Never Nanny in This Town Again (by Michael Ovtiz’s angry former nanny) and the unsold This Used to Be My Playground (by Madonna’s angry former nanny). Whatever publishing house prints the book should hire Martin, because she understood what Judith Regan never did: You can’t write books about killing people unless the surviving families get in on the deal. Duh.
New York Company to Publish O.J. Simpson Book [Reuters]
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iGreedySony chairman Howard Stringer called Steve Jobs “greedy” at the Allen & Co. conference. The main character of Doug Stumpf’s Confessions of a Wall Street Shoeshine Boy may be based on pervy billionaire Jeffrey Epstein. Katie Holmes and Suri Cruise went to the Biography Bookstore in the West Village and then to Magnolia. Joe DiMaggio’s brother Dom is not pleased the Yankee Clipper’s diaries are for sale. Stone Phillips is leaving Dateline, and he bought his longtime assistant an Audi as a parting gift. Matt Damon wants Al Gore to run for president. Ashlee Simpson helped beau Pete Wentz conquer his fear of flying so Wentz could get to the Hamptons via seaplane. Democratic Leadership Council Chairman Harold Ford Jr. hung out with Jay-Z, Nas, and Kid Rock in Southampton. Jennifer Connelly and Paul Bettany brought their 4-year-old to the Children’s Museum of Manhattan.
gossipmonger
Don’t Cry for Us, O.J. SimpsonO.J. Simpson had a ghostwriter for his never-released memoir, If I Did It (who’d have thunk it!) and even practiced a crying scene for his TV interview with Judith Regan. Barry Bonds’s ex-mistress, who has alleged that the slugger has used steroids, is shopping a tell-all and nude pictorial. Enrique Iglesias wishes he were gay. Nathan Lane wants to start a heterosexual pride parade, with George W. Bush as grand marshal. Jay McInerney is sick of telling people he broke his foot chasing after a taxi. Madonna didn’t invite Janet Jackson to sit at her booth at Butter, though she did hang out with Shakira. Also: Ashton, Demi, and Penélope were there. The flowers at the Waldorf-Astoria wedding of billionaire Russian heiress Angelina Anisimova and real-estate developer Ryan Freedman cost $1 million. John McCain didn’t wash his hands before leaving a restroom in East Hampton.
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Isn’t It Rich?A new book alleges that Bill Clinton had an affair with socialite Denise Rich and that Nancy Pelosi knew about it. Barack Obama asked for Beyoncé’s autograph at a fund-raiser at L.A. Reid’s house on the Upper East Side. Star Jones signed a deal to host a show on Court TV. Katie Homes may have chosen her new upcoming movie, a girl-buddy flick, because it had no sex scenes that might make hubby Tom Cruise jealous. Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas dined next to Barack Obama at the Waverly Inn. Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal may be hooking up. An intern claims Lizzie Grubman owes her more than $6,000 in back wages. Stewardess diddler Ralph Fiennes frolicked naked in a pool with four women at a hotel in Belgium.
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O.J., Canada!It seems the O.J. Simpson If I Did It saga still won’t die. (Ha! No? Sorry.) The latest news: A Canadian publisher, Barclay Road, has declared its interest in publishing the pulped fiasco. Employees of the publishing company were “initially disgusted by reports of the book’s topic,” according to a Bloomberg News report, but now, “in the name of free speech” — and, we suspect, in the name of a silly, attention-getting gimmick — “it wants to give it a try.” Isn’t it lovely to see foreigners so dedicated to our Bill of Rights? And to our shameless marketing?
Barclay Road Says It Would Consider O.J. Simpson Book [Bloomberg]
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O.J. on O.J.: Bad; Wolcott on O.J. on O.J.: GoodAs pleasingly intriguing as it is to realize that a few stray copies of O.J. Simpson’s If I Did It are floating around, we’re even more pleased that one landed in the capable hands of Vanity Fair columnist James Wolcott. So, James, was the ReganBooks fiasco worth the ensuing scandal? His answer, it seems: Not so much. In a review-cum-condemnation posted to VF.com today, Wolcott is most struck by the banality of the allegedly incendiary material, noting that O.J.’s story is a “suave void” in which the running back turned movie star presents himself as a passive figure in his marriage and the murders, only slightly less inert than ghostwriter Pablo Fenvjes’s prose. Don’t think that means you shouldn’t read the review itself, though. Even if O.J. isn’t able to spin more than a yawn-yarn from his story of a wife-beating marriage, double murder, and Trial of the Century, Wolcott’s toss-offs, like his gloriously alliterative contortion — “a shameless yet ingeniously opaque cockteaser of a cash-in confessional (who knew a book about a double homicide could be so flipping coy?)” — are the closest this case will ever get to poetic justice.
Murder, He Wrote (Sort Of) [VF.com]
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If Wolcott Did It…The owner of former meatpacking S&M club–cum–celeb hangout the Vault is shopping a dishy tell-all. James Wolcott got his hands on the O.J. Simpson book, wrote about it in Vanity Fair. Naomi Campbell is leaving her agency to join IMG. (She was also named ambassador to Rio by the Brazilian city’s mayor.) Being Anna Wintour’s assistant really is as difficult as Emily Blunt made it seem in The Devil Wears Prada.
in other news
O.J. Simpson Made $1.2 Million Not to Publish a Book or Appear on TVOkay, there’s one more O.J.-Judith wrinkle today worth mentioning (and, boy, do we hope it’s the last one). Court TV got hold of Simpson’s If I Did It contract with HarperCollins, part of a lawsuit Fred Goldman filed to try to recover the money Simpson owes after losing the 1997 wrongful-death suit. Slate’s Timothy Noah, together with some unnamed literary-agent friends of his, examined the document and finds some interesting points. According to Noah, under the terms of the agreement, Simpson is already owed at least $780,000, even though the book was pulped. He may be due $95,000 more, depending on whether a book is considered “published” when it’s shipped from the warehouse or when it’s rung up at the cash register. He’s also owed $400,000 for the unaired If I Did It TV special, because the contract stipulated he would be paid for being interviewed, whether or not the interview aired. Finally, Simpson apparently wanted to sign the contact under an assumed name and stipulated he would sign as “Sam Jones,” perhaps taking the name from the sixties Celtics star. Despite that clause, the contract doesn’t actually bear that signature: In what might have been the company’s only smart move in this transaction, they insisted O.J. sign his own name.
O.J.’s Book Contract [Slate]
Hollywood Heat Exclusive: Contract Details Payments Between Simpson and HarperCollins [Court TV]
in other news
O.J.’s Book Deal: Regan’s Out, But Everyone Else Is Allegedly InThe O.J. book project — and forgive the metaphor — will seemingly never die. Publisher Judith Regan may have left the building, but the Juice’s coterie is still shopping a page turner from the disgraced football has-been. The old “fictional” aspect of the If I Did It Regan deal seems to have been scrapped; now publishers and agents are, says O.J.’s lawyer, “clamoring” for a memoir. (We don’t know if receiving three e-mails in one day, as attorney Yale Galanter says he did, necessarily constitutes “clamoring,” but prevarication-wise, it’s progress.) Galanter claims he’s got a profit-sharing deal worked out between O.J. and Ron Goldman’s family — to which Simpson owes millions on a civil judgment — but Fred Goldman, Ron’s mustached dad, doesn’t seem too hot to get on board. (Astonishing!) Still, we understand why agents and publishers are so eager to follow in Regan’s footsteps. Sure, the first deal was an unmitigated disaster, but the ruthless, delusional psychopath at the helm managed to weather the media assault and the eventual unraveling of the project without killing anyone — so it’s probably safe to enter the room now. Oh, and, also, he seems like such a nice guy to work with, doesn’t he?
There’s Plenty of Juice for O.J. Book, Att’y Sez [NYDN]
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Selling This Book Will Be MurderOne of the few courtesies the press can accord the deceased — other than not parking satellite trucks on their families’ yards, which is of course out of the question — is to keep coverage of the departed respectfully free of playful rhetorical flourishes. You’d think this applies even a decade later, but, then, you don’t work at Time magazine. The stalwart newsweekly has reported that rights to If I Did It will revert to O.J. within twelve months, which means it’s likely we’ll see the book in stores — overseas, at least — by next Christmas. We’re glad for the info — but less glad for some of those flourishes:
But the title itself, like a bad penny, may resurface, perhaps before the end of 2007.
Murdoch’s high-profile rejection has only made the book more attractive. (Imagine the cover blurb: “The book that Rupert Murdoch doesn’t want you to read!”)
And so, alas, we will have to expect new chapters in the history of the crime of the last century.
Of course, it could have been worse. Herewith, some phrases we presume were included in the first draft but left on the cutting-room floor at the Time & Life Building:
But the title itself, like someone jumping out to murder you when you least expect it, may emerge from the hedge before the end of 2007.
Murdoch’s high-profile rejection has only made the book more attractive. (Imagine the cover blurb: “Okay, Rupert: The gloves are off!”)
And so, alas, unlike Ron and Nicole, this project just won’t die.
It’s fun for everyone! Well, except for the dead people.
O.J.’s Book, Back By Next Christmas [Time]
