A Whole Lot of HarperCollins Crazy

Judith Regan, the editor recently fired from her own imprint ReganBooks, which was once slated to publish O.J. Simpson's insane hypothetical confession, If I Did It, is suing HarperCollins (HC). In a legal complaint, Regan alleges that Jane Friedman, HC's Prez and CEO, mounted a “malicious assault on her character," according to the New York Times. Regan was fired because of an anti-Semetic remark she denies having made—and not because she was about to publish the work of an almost-confessed murderer (hello?), which no doubt HC execs LOVED, until they realized the public found it astoundingly distasteful.

One of the instances cited in Regan's complaint contributing to an alleged "hostile workplace" was a failure on HC's part to investigate an extremely heavy lighting fixture that fell from the ceiling onto Regan's desk (Regan says it was the spies monkeying around with her). She also says the company encouraged a culture of "gossip, back-stabbing, negative leaks and hostility.”

Spies and chandeliers? Hypothetical confessions of murder and back-stabbing? (The gossip and hostility we already knew about.) No wonder we can't get published.