O.J. Speaks Out Again

O.J. Simpson has once again injected himself into the news, this time in a live 45-minute telephone interview with the Fox News Channel in which he discusses his reaction to a recent magazine article about him and a wide range of other subjects.

Simpson, who called the Fox News Channel anchor Shepard Smith from South Florida on Monday afternoon, both supported and criticized accounts of his current life as reported in the latest issue of New Yorker magazine.

Among other things, Simpson said in the article that his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, had actually stalked him in the days before her death. He repeated those assertions again during Monday's interview.

He also tried to clarify his comment in the article that he would "hit on" Nicole Brown Simpson "if she had a different head." He said during Monday's interview that he meant he would still be attracted to his ex-wife if she had a "different attitude."

But while supporting much of what had been reported in the article, Simpson several times also lashed out at what he called his unfair treatment at the hands of the media. He also spoke about why the media seems so inteterested in his story.

"I get 20 to 30 interview requests a day," the onetime football superstar said. "I don’t have the time or the inclination to do it."

Later, he said: "I’m amazed by the hoopla in the media," over his case.

Simpson, found not guilty of murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, in a murder trial but later found responsible for her death in a civil case, said he found inaccuracies at two points in the New Yorker article. One was about how he compared his 15-year-old daughter, Sydney, to her mother.

In the article, Simpson credited Sydney with having Nicole's genes, which he said made her "smart enough not to get [herself] caught" when she gets into trouble. In the telephone interview, Simpson said his comment about "Sydney being like her mother, bull-headed," had been turned into something "nasty."

Of the second inaccuracy, Simpson said, "I can’t remember the other thing right now."

Simpson also scolded the magazine article and other media reports for reports on his charity work, but "You ignore those parts in the story and only go to the incendiary part of the story."

Nevertheless, Simpson repeated his statements in the article about how his notoriety hasn’t entirely hurt him since the murder of his ex-wife.

"I think it’s sick almost. Now that I have this negative reputation, I have girls send me letters and throwing things at me and hitting on me," he said.

Simpson ended the interview shortly after he indignantly refused to answer questions about his children. He also refused to take questions from a crowd of people on the street behind the interviewer.