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Judith Regan, mastermind

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So ended, at least for now, one of the book world’s most profitable and provocative careers. Regan, O.J. Simpson’s would-be publisher, has been fired, her sensational tenure at the Murdoch-owned HarperCollins finished off with the tersest of announcements.

“Judith Regan’s employment with HarperCollins has been terminated effective immediately,” HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman said in a statement late Friday.

Friedman offered no reason for the decision or details of any kind. But her statement comes just weeks after Murdoch’s cancellation of Simpson’s hypothetical murder confession, “If I Did It,” a planned book and Fox TV interview that Regan vehemently defended but was greeted with instant and near-universal disgust.

“She’s a tremendously inventive publisher, but I guess she just pushed the envelope too far,” said Jonathan Karp, publisher of the Warner Twelve imprint at the Hachette Book Group.

Simpson’s book, said to have described how he theoretically would have committed the murders of ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend Ronald Goldman, had been scheduled for release Nov. 30 following the airing of a two-part Simpson interview.

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