Canned at Christmas: Murdoch Axes O.J. Publisher

Dec. 16, 2006 — -- Just what does media giant Rupert Murdoch get his top book publisher, Judith Regan, for Christmas?

Apparently, a permanent vacation.

Regan, who recently made headlines for planning, then pulling, O.J. Simpson's quasi-confession, "If I Did It," was fired Friday by HarperCollins, a subsidiary of Murdoch's News Corp. Word broke during the company's holiday party.

"Judith Regan's employment with HarperCollins has been terminated effective immediately," Jane Friedman, HarperCollins CEO, said in a statement.

Regan first teamed with Murdoch in 1994. She ran her own publishing imprint, Regan Books, and has put out works from such major names as Rush Limbaugh, Howard Stern, Jose Canseco, Eminem and porn star Jenna Jameson.

"It's a shock," said David Hauslaib, publisher and editor of the New York media gossip blog, Jossip. "Judith Regan is such an asset to her publishing imprint, to HarperCollins, to News Corp. as a whole. This is really important, because you have this blockbuster personality who is suddenly axed from the publishing house she built, made a name for, and has really delivered for. She does great things for the News Corp. bottom line."

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Regan is well-known for being both wildly successful and wildly scandalous.

"I hesitate to call Judith a diva, but certainly that's the reputation that's attached to her," Hauslaib said. "She makes and breaks writers."

A former National Enquirer reporter, she has been called the "enfant terrible of American publishing." Regan is envied by many in the business for the press she covets. Some of the attention falls on her books, and the rest on scandal in her private life.

Regan's first husband was convicted of drug trafficking. Divorcing her second husband took around eight years, three trials and millions of dollars in legal fees. And, in 2004, she is rumored to have had an affair with former New York City Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, who failed in a bid to be Homeland Security secretary.