O.J. Simpson: Acting Out for Absolution?

Is O.J. gradually confessing to the murders of Nicole and Ron Goldman? Not according to the former football pro himself. “I didn’t do it, so I’ve never thought about confessing,” he told the Associated Press Tuesday. But Daniel Petrocelli, the lawyer who successfully sued Simpson two years ago for $33.5 million over the deaths, claims to see evidence of a “creeping confession” in O.J.’s media appearances. His biggest piece of evidence: An interview to be broadcast today on British television, in which Simpson jokingly attacks presenter Ruby Wax with a banana. “That was astonishing behavior,” says Petrocelli, “even if you’re an O.J. believer... if he were truly an innocent man, he would be incapable of jesting about this.”

Petrocelli’s exhibit B is the now-infamous Esquire interview, in which Simpson puts forward the theory that if he had committed the crime, it would have to be “because I loved [Nicole] very much.” And his motive? “He’d like to win back the public,” Petrocelli suggests, “and if admitting it would get him there he might do it.” O.J. says Petrocelli has a motive of his own -- to drum up controversy for his new book.