Controversial 2006 O.J. Simpson interview will finally air on Fox

Bill Keveney | USA TODAY

Show Caption Hide Caption OJ Simpson registers with Vegas police Las Vegas police say OJ Simpson has formally registered at local police headquarters in accordance with his release from a Nevada prison last weekend after serving nine years for armed robbery. (Oct. 6)

Is a controversial 2006 interview in which O.J. Simpson speculated on how the murders he was acquitted of might have happened still too hot to handle?

Fox will find out March 11, when it airs a two-hour special, O.J. Simpson: The Lost Confession? (8 ET/PT), which will mark the first time the interview is seen on TV. The special has been scheduled to blunt a revival of American Idol, a one-time Fox superhit that the network canceled in 2016 but returns on ABC that same night.

The interview was part of a campaign timed to publication of a ghost-written book, If I Did It, which featured Simpson offering a hypothetical description of how his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ronald Goldman were killed in 1994. Simpson was charged with the murders but eventually acquitted in what was called the "Trial of the Century."

The interview, which was scheduled to run on Fox 12 years ago, was never broadcast because of a public backlash. And until it was recently "discovered," the recording had been lost.

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In the interview with publisher Judith Regan, "Simpson gives a shocking hypothetical account of the events that occurred on the night Nicole Brown Simpson and Ronald Goldman were brutally murdered," according to the Fox announcement. "During their conversation, Simpson, in his own words, offers a detailed — and disturbing — description of what might have happened on that fateful night."



Journalist Soledad O'Brien hosts the special, which will air with limited interruptions and feature public-service announcements about domestic violence. O'Brien will head a panel discussion to provide analysis and context.

Although Simpson was acquitted in criminal court, he was found responsible for the murders after a civil trial and ordered to pay the victims' families $33.5 million. In 2008, he was found guilty of felonies related to a 2007 kidnapping incident in Las Vegas. He was sentenced to 33 years in prison, but was released on parole in October.









