Dish by Jeannette Walls

“Indeed, even as it was accruing these accolades, the Enquirer had begun to encounter a problem that had to do with the reality that the O.J. Simpson story riveted not just tabloid readers but the entire nation. Ninety-five million people had watched the BRonco chase on television. Economist Bernard Lentz of Ursinus College in Collegetown, Pennsylvania, estimated that workers were so distracted by watching and talking about the trial that businesses lost more than $25 billion. The elite were just as fascinated; Congressional hearings and the daily State Department briefings were scheduled around the important developments in the O.J. case. Foreigners were also obsessed. When Benazir Bhutto, the Prime Minister of Pakistan, visited Los Angeles and was asked who she would like as dinner guests, she requested Marcia Clark and Robert Shapiro. And President Clinton said that when Russian President Boris Yeltsin visited the United States in 1994, his first comment to Clinton was ‘Do you think OJ did it?"‘“

-Jeannette Walls, 2000