WWW- Judith Regan, publisher of O.J. Simpson ‘s book “If I Did It,” says she did not pay him for the rights to publish his book, in which the onetime football superstar tells how he would have killed his ex-wife if, in fact, he had done it.

“What I do know is I didn’t pay him,” Regan said in a statement published exclusively Thursday night on The Drudge Report. “I contracted through a third party who owns the rights, and I was told the money would go to his children. That much I could live with.”

The book deal reportedly was sold to HarperCollins for $3.5 million.

The producer of a TV special FOX plans to air in conjunction with the book confirmed that Regan’s statement was authentic, and said she was publishing it only on the Drudge Report and would not provide copies to other media outlets.

Regan said in the statement that she knew “from my own experience” that Simpson would be found not guilty of murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown, and her friend Ron Goldman.

Regan said that she knew Simpson would be acquitted because she, herself, had once been abused by a boyfriend who “manipulated, lied, and broke my heart…. And then, after all but leaving me for dead in a hospital … he left for good.”

Regan said: “I made the decision to publish this book, and to sit face to face with the killer, because I wanted him, and the men who broke my heart and your hearts, to tell the truth, to confess their sins, to do penance and to amend their lives.

Simpson was acquitted of the murders in 1995, but was later found criminally liable for the deaths in civil court in 1997. Although he was ordered to pay an estimated $38 million in damages to the Goldman family, Simpson has avoided making full restitution because California law prevents his NFL pension from being seized to satisfy the judgment. His lavish residence in Florida is similarly protected under state law.