There's simply no end to the embarrassment O.J. Simpson brings upon himself.
After shaming himself in a 20-minute shouting match with Denise Brown on Fox News Channel last month, then contradicting his attorney's statement by saying he'd take a lie detector test only if he got paid for it, O.J. now has hooked up with Entertainment Network, the folks who brought us the popular Peeping Tom porn site VoyeurDorm.com.
Get ready for AskOJ.com, set to go live on July 27 with a chat with Simpson. For $9.95 a month, mouse potatoes can surf through O.J.'s new, "never-before-seen" evidence surrounding the case of his murdered wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, buy autographed jerseys and helmets ($75 to $400) in the "Juice Shop," chat live with Simpson and "special guests" and, eventually, see streaming video of the Juice taking a lie detector test. The site's developers also have approached major networks and cable channels about simulcasting the "event."
"AskOJ.com will enable me to speak directly to the public without interference," the maligned football star said in a statement. "The main purpose is to answer questions and to bring out facts that have been ignored. Who knows, it may also open up avenues that could lead to the discovery of the murderer or the murderers."
So is the Juice feeling squeezed? One has to wonder whether this is a classless attempt to fill his pockets with some extra cash.
After all, the self-styled dot-com entrepreneur still owes $30 million to the families of murder victims Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman after being found liable in a 1997 wrongful death suit. To pony up the dough, Simpson has resorted to selling old football trophies.
Recently, Simpson called Fox News Channel's "Fox News Live" and accused Denise Brown, a guest on the show, of benefiting from her sister's death, telling her, "You made money. You're not on welfare anymore."
"You are a pig. You are a lowlife," Brown retorted.
But David Marshlack, president of Entertainment Network, swears O.J. won't be drawing a dime. Instead, he says, Simpson has promised to donate profits to charities, including the Innocence Project, which provides legal help to inmates convicted on the basis of DNA evidence.
So what does Marshlack himself make of O.J.'s infamous acquittal of double homicide?
"I watched the whole trial pretty closely, and when I met with him, I realized there's so much stuff I never saw," he says. "Lots of physical evidence. All I can say is, it really opened my mind."
Marshlack, however, refuses to go into further detail, insisting on remaining neutral. "I'm nothing more than Geraldo here."
He got the idea for AskOJ.com in early June, while tossing back a few beers in a sports bar, watching the bitter Simpson-Brown shouting match unfold on Fox.
Now the big question: Will Denise Brown be invited for an AskOJ.com chat?
"That's a possibility," Marshlack says.
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