News flash: O.J. Simpson did it for the money.

In an interview last week with The Associated Press, the disgraced former NFL running back said he agreed to his memoir “If I Did It” to earn some much-needed “blood money.”

“My kids would have been coming into a lot of money,” Simpson said. “Everybody who has written a book about (the killings) has taken blood money; you can’t have selective morality.”

“If I Did It” was scrapped recently by publisher HarperCollins, against the red face of public outcry. It contained a chapter where Simpson hypothetically muses on how he would have executed the as-yet unsolved slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and Ronald Goldman in 1994.

The book was set to release this Thursday, after an extensive two-part interview with Simpson aired this week on Fox. The network’s owner, News Corp., is also the parent of HarperCollins. Rupert Murdoch, the corporation’s controversial owner, announced Simpson’s scrapping personally.

Despite the book’s wholly objectionable content – which Simpson admits was ghostwritten – its squelching is an interesting precedent. Simpson is one of the first “authors” to have a book pulled, not because of inaccurate information or plagiarism, but rather because of criticism of its material.

Tastelessness is not a crime in America, and Simpson had a right, however skin-crawling, to his trash novel. Booksellers and the public should have been the jury, through either not stocking or not buying “If I Did It.” After all, the book is merely the messenger.

This is why blame for this travesty lies with its creators. Simpson, who complains his monthly $1,700 pension from the NFL is paltry, deserves censure for playing the mercenary to hypothesize about his methods of killing. Such carelessness for the victim’s families – of which he’s part – is astounding.

Murdoch and News Corp., as well, could have let this idea die on the vine. It’s hard to applaud the last-minute spiking an awful project, when it should have been euthanized as a mere notion.

Simpson seems to get it. “I’m taking heat, and I deserve it,” he said. “But Murdoch should not be taking the high road, either.” The cancellation, he added, made him “feel like a man who’s had the weight of the world taken off me.”

The nation’s relief is equal. We hope these will be the last words heard from Simpson, or anyone else, about it.