"The media went on a rampage, blaming me for the whole O.J. book debacle. They came out, guns blazing, and tried to kill me. I felt like Faye Dunaway's character in the final scene of Bonnie and Clyde. Bullets flying in every direction," former publisher Judith Regan writes in her hotly-anticipated Harper's Bazaar profile of herself. You know, the one where she talks about having sung 'My Way!' It's on newsstands now, and it is all about how she "took the blows." In fact, this phrase comes up several times. In one instance she writes that something happened "after a month of taking the blows without protection." Shots! Blows! Attempts on Judith's very life! What is fact here and what's hyperbole? Does Judith Regan believe in distinguishing between the two?

Click to enlarge! Also, after the jump: win a walk-on role in your favorite weekly web comic!

Previously: Sex And The Kat City

"The lawsuit by former book publisher Judith Regan against News Corporation, parent company of "fair and balanced" Fox News, has a certain similarity to the Iran-Iraq war: it's hard to work up a rooting interest in either side," writes Richard Aregood in today's Guardian, but he then goes on treat her claim that her firing was motivated by a conspiracy to effect a Giuliani White House more seriously than most have. And then there's this zinger: "In discussions over an anti-Regan article in the New York Post that Regan says was totally fictional, her complaint alleges that the [News Corp] lawyers acknowledged that the article in question was per se defamatory, but they offered her a dubious reassurance: "No one believes what they read in the New York Post."

Judith Regan's not an anti-semite: She's an Italophobe! As the full 70-page text of her $100 million lawsuit against HarperCollins and News Corp. reveals, Judy herself is the victim of a "smear campaign." Remember those awful claims that Ms. Regan, upon her post-If I Did It dismissal, made mention of a "Jewish cabal" and "Of all people...the Jews should know about telling the big lie." Why were such malicious falsehoods spread about a lady who's, at worst, only the second most repellent nouveau Judy to have funded fornication with 9/11 charity monies? You guessed it: because of the NewsCorp conspiracy to elect Rudy Giuliani president at all costs!

From the mailbag: "at Milberg Weiss, Judith Regan has just filed a defamation lawsuit against Harper Collins, NewsCorp. and Jane Friedman." Looks like Judith is making good on the promise she made back in January, getting it in under the wire before the statute of limitations ran out. Brace for crazy!

And now, the complete audio of Judith Regan singing "My Way." [MP3, 5.2 MB]

Super-cougar publisher and current Sirius radio chat-show host Judith Regan writes in the December Harper's Bazaar that , after she was fired from her own HarperCollins imprint, she went off to China and found some of herself. Then she came back to New York and enjoyed a cathartic moment when she belted out "My Way" in a downtown karaoke bar." Well! We are extremely please to report that, while she declined to reenact that performance for us, Ms. Regan has sent us the audio of her version of "My Way." (Yes. We are being serious.) Honestly, it is amazing. Not "Chocolate Rain" amazing—more like Jennifer Hudson amazing. We made a video of the first half! [Karaoke video: Blakeley/Stein Film Starship]

Bernie Kerik—Rudy's ultimate bro, former New York police commish, quickly-withdrawn nominee to head the Department of Homeland Security, baldie, sexer-of-Judith Regan at a free Ground Zero apartment, former Interim Minister of Interior of Iraq (we always forget that one), and all-around mobbed-up creep—is apparently evading more than just taxes. His lawyers are suing him for $200,000 in unpaid legal bills! Soon he will hire super-publicist Ronn Torossian and we can all watch him on Fox even more often.

This afternoon I had the pleasure of going on former HarperCollins imprint-haver and If I Did It-making-happener Judith Regan's Sirius radio show. She's fun! By which I mean, she didn't hit me! And she confirmed that she couldn't stand the HarperCollins HR department. And also? She looks like a million bucks. She really does. (She is 54.) I didn't have time to ask her for beauty tips (we were too busy talking about how poorly I was dressed and why I want to defame people all the time and of course our book) but the internet provides some answers. I had thought perhaps it was a deal with Satan! But instead: It's coffee enemas with Howard Stern co-host Robin Quivers!

A tipster writes:

"Frog King," Adam Davies' 2002 debut novel—a roman a clef about book publishing—didn't make much of a splash when it first hit bookstores. But in 2004, Intermedia optioned Bret Easton Ellis's adaptation of the book, with Asif Kapadia to direct. Now, the script is floating around town, and people are noticing the remarkable similarities a certain character in it bears to a famous recently-deposed publishing tyrant. We got our hands on a copy, and, lookie here: She's a sexually rapacious evil bitch goddess and her name is "Judith Nathan."

Judith Regan, the former head of ReganBooks, her imprint at HarperCollins, was hatchet-jobbed by Rupert Murdoch back in December—but her fantastic editorial vision lives on! This week, she has book on the Hardcover Advice bestseller list and on the Hardcover Nonfiction list—billed, as announced in January, as HarperCollins books. HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman, a ringleader of the "Jewish cabal" that "forced Regan out" (yes, so many scare quotes there!) has had her final revenge.

From Jason Gordon, the Williamsburg-based online marketing specialist who Eric Schaeffer has retained to help promote his book, comes this email:

So Eric Schaeffer's making the rounds, promoting his book, and his interview with Nerve is mostly nothing new. "I've been in therapy for years. My spiritual path has been one of self-reflection," and "It's hard to find really smart, funny women who are confident and have a job or an aspiration that's inspiring to me," and "Special-massage girls will give you love because it's just the nature of who they are and what they're doing." But then there's this: "I ended a book deal from a major publisher in New York because the woman who runs the publishing company, when my dick was in her mouth, had her checkbook out and said, "I will buy your book now." Come again? (Or please, please, never come again, but, you know, clarify?)

• David Patrick Columbia goes to the gym. [NYSD]
  

• Conrad Black's fraud trial starts today. [Chicago Tribune]
  

The book that was the real reason for Judith Regan's firing—at least according to New York magazine—has found a new unscrupulous publisher. The Lyons Press, which according to its website is "proud to publish the most distinguished list of fishing books in the world, as well as quality works on horses" has acquired the rights to 7, the Mickey Mantle bio that reads like bad erotica (For instance: "Mickey enters [Marilyn Monroe], going in nice and easy ..." ). "It's one of those books that a lot of people will love, but some won't," author Peter Golenbock told the Times yesterday. Those 'people' presumably include HarperCollins CEO Jane Friedman, who "hit the roof" when the book was decried on the cover of the Daily News. Will anyone still care by the time the book comes out? Well, says Golenbock, "The only change was from 'Regan' to 'Lyons." So... no.

So far this is only true in our minds. But with Judith Regan emerging from Remi on 53rd Street this afternoon, her highlights all ablaze, there's no way we couldn't think that some deal like this is in the works:

• Fox to do for business what it's done for the Republican party: Convince gullible yahoos that it isn't a soulless machine out to exploit the most vulnerable members of our society for the benefit of those who were born with all of life's advantages in the first place. [NYT]
  

Oooh, Michael Wolff's got a big Judith Regan analysis in March's Vanity Fair! Let's skim: Judy's not an anti-Semite, just a crazy person . . . perversely, she's a hero in a way . . . the last over the top tabloid personality . . . has a problem with authority . . . Rupert Murdoch's gone soft . . . Jane Friedman's a diva too in her own right . . . Yawn! Frankly, we were a bit more entertained when we read these tidbits last week, in Vanessa Grigoriadis's New York profile which also tilled this increasingly barren patch of earth. But wait! Turns out, Wolff does have something new to say: while Grigoriadis only crossed paths with Regan in a job interview, Wolff's had much more personal experience of her crazitude — they were school chums. Lucky Michael was even privy to Judy's bedroom secrets — and unless you stop reading now, soon you'll share in his good fortune.