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David Hasselhoff recently starred in a video that showed him boozed up and trying to eat a hamburger off the floor. PHOTO: AP

O.J. Simpson set up a shell company to hide his book profits from the family of Ron Goldman, which is trying to collect a wrongful death judgment against the former football star, a judge ruled last week.

Lorraine Brooke Associates, a now-bankrupt Miami company owned by Simpson's four children, was a mere conduit to hold the rights for Simpson's book, If I Did It, US Bankruptcy Judge Jay Cristol ruled.

The book was billed as a hypothetical account of how Simpson could have murdered his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Goldman. Publisher Harper Collins scrapped it in November amid a public uproar.

The Juice said he did not commit the 1994 killings and a jury acquitted him of murder in 1995, but Goldman's family won a US$38-million wrongful death judgment against him two years later.

The Miami bankruptcy judge's finding clears the way for Goldman's father, Fred Goldman, to pursue a claim to the book rights, which are held by a court-appointed trustee for the bankrupt company, said one of Fred Goldman's lawyers, David Cook.

The Juice is still being squeezed by his slain ex-wife's family. PHOTO: AP

Cook said the Goldmans had so far squeezed only about US$2,000 from O.J., mostly from his movie royalties.

After penning biographies of Lucrezia Borgia and Jacqueline Kennedy, historian Sarah Bradford was reluctant to write about Princess Diana because she thought of her as a "silly, neurotic blonde."

By the time Bradford finished her book, she had changed her mind.

At a literary festival staged at Diana's family home in Althorp, Bradford said the princess made such a fascinating subject because of her contradictions.

Lady Di's biographer says the princess was no dumb blonde. PHOTO: AP

"She could be funny, witty, a lovely friend. She could also turn on people, she could be cruel, she could be hysterical," Bradford said.

"How did this totally unsophisticated girl become a world figure in 16 years? What she achieved was remarkable."

Diana was killed in a Paris car crash almost 10 years ago and her brother Charles, in his funeral oration, called the princess "the most hunted person of the modern age."

Bradford highlights Diana's complex personality and particularly her paradoxical attitude to fame.

"She found it suffocating and she wanted a private life. But the other side of her wanted the celebrity and she would call up reporters herself," Bradford said.

Diana's death prompted an unprecedented outpouring of national grief portrayed in the Oscar-winning movie The Queen. "This girl represented great beauty and a unique gift for communication. People felt they owned her. She was part of their lives, it could not be true that she had gone," Bradford said.

Diana, like Marilyn Monroe, died at 36, and Bradford feels it was definitely a life half-lived.

"I discovered that before she died she was planning to do specific television programs focusing on issues like landmines, AIDS and, strangely enough, illiteracy.

"She was going to do media training in New York. She had mapped out a way of continuing her charity work in a very conspicuous way."

In another celebrity divorce case last week, a judge granted actor-singer David Hasselhoff custody of his two teenage daughters after a bitter court battle with his ex-wife that involved a video showing him drunk in the presence of one of the girls.

He has "primary, physical and sole custody," Hasselhoff's spokeswoman said.

Hasselhoff, 54, former star of TV's Baywatch who is now a judge on contest show America's Got Talent, divorced his wife, Pamela Bach, 43, last August. The two have battled over custody of daughters Taylor Ann, 17, and Hayley, 14.

Last month, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mark Juhas suspended Hasselhoff's visitation rights after a video emerged on Web sites showing a shirtless and addled Hasselhoff lying on the floor struggling to eat a hamburger.

The video features the voice of a young girl urging him not to drink, and it was widely reported to have been made by one of his daughters.

Following the tape's release, Hasselhoff acknowledged he was a recovering alcoholic and admitted to having relapsed. (The actor earlier said he has his daughters tape him so he can study his behavior.) By late May, Hasselhoff had regained visitation rights.

On Friday, the star beamed with delight as he emerged from a Los Angeles courtroom where a custody hearing took place. He told reporters, "The judge said, 'Enough is enough.'"

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